Nuclear Energy Experts Laud Federal Policy Initiatives, Question Proposed Budget Cuts

Reactor developers and operators tell a House panel more deregulation and funding are needed to win the AI race, which the nation ‘cannot afford to lose.’

A researcher in the Quantum Information Science group at the U.S. Oak Ridge National Laboratory fabricates quantum photonic circuits for future quantum communications, sensing, and computing technologies. Oak Ridge National Laboratory

President Donald Trump’s May executive orders seeking to “reinvigorate” the nation’s nuclear energy industry will boost the bipartisan push begun with 2024’s adoption of the ADVANCE Act, but more regulatory clear-cutting and investment is needed to sustain that momentum, reactor developers and operators say.

If not, they told a House panel, the United States could be eclipsed by competitors—most notably, China—in commercializing emerging technologies, such as small modular nuclear reactors, to power the artificial intelligence poised to dramatically restructure commerce, industry, and national security.

AI is “redefining how knowledge will be created in the future, similar to how the Industrial Revolution utilized machines to turn raw materials into goods more efficiently,” Electric Power Research Institute Executive Director Dr. Jeremy Renshaw said during a June 12 hearing before the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee’s Energy Subcommittee.

The data centers that will nurture these AI advances “can be viewed as knowledge factories,” he testified, “supporting all sectors of industry in the future.”

Renshaw was joined by Santa Clara, Calif.-based Oklo Chief Technology Officer Pat Schweiger and Baltimore-founded Constellation Energy Executive Vice President Kathleen L. Barrón in calling on Congress to untangle complex licensing and permitting requirements, and restore slashed funding for research programs in the proposed Department of Energy’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget.

“AI leadership is a civilization-level challenge, and we face a geopolitical imperative to achieve AI supremacy,” Schweiger said in his testimony  “Energy is the foundation upon which America’s AI future depends” and nuclear power is the solution.

The nation needs an “‘all-of-the-above’ approach,” he said, and offered three “policy changes to accelerate advanced nuclear deployment.”

The first, Schweiger said, is to “unlock an abundance of nuclear fuel,” calling on Congress “to push DOE to accelerate its support for the domestic fuel supply chain and HALEU (High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium) production.”

Next, the federal government must “continue investment in next-generation research,” he said, especially in “the fuel cycle, commercial fuel recycling, and the next-generation core technologies necessary to compete globally.”

Schweiger’s third request was to “modernize regulations around technologies with decades of proven safety. Congress should rethink how we regulate inherently safe, proven nuclear technologies—from advanced reactors to commercial fuel recycling to waste management—so American nuclear plants can serve energy needs for AI, civilian communities, DOE labs, and military installations.”

Rep. Sheri Biggs (R-S.C.) asked, “What federal policies could help scale nuclear capacity fast enough to meet and exceed the growing energy demand?”

“That’s a bit of a toughie,” Schweiger said. “The industry has to move faster in America, and then there has to be the money to back the initiatives.”

Barrón in her testimony called on Congress to adopt policies “extending the life of our existing reactors, ‘uprating’ existing reactors through upgrades that permanently increase power output, restarting retired reactors, and adding new reactors at existing plants.

“As President Trump and bipartisan leaders in our national security and intelligence communities have noted, the global race to secure AI dominance is one that we, as a nation, cannot afford to lose,” she said, but it is uncertain if the proposed budget provides the money to sustain “federal policy support.”

The Transient Test Reactor at the Idaho National Laboratory about 50 miles west of Idaho Falls in eastern Idaho on Nov. 29, 2018. Keith Ridler/AP Photo

Incongruous Cuts

Biggs asked Barrón how the licensing process could be “simplified to allow for quicker project initiation to power generation?”

“Thankfully,” she responded, “that has been a subject of much attention of late. With the president’s executive orders and focusing on streamlining the relicensing and licensing timeline, there’s no question that we need a very competent and very responsible federal regulator to be overseeing the industry.”

“But we also need to move as quick as we possibly can,” Barrón continued, citing an example where Constellation spent “$35 million to take a couple of years to evaluate whether [a] site is suitable for nuclear power when it already has a reactor on the site.”

Biggs asked, “What is the most effective role for the federal government to aid in the production and scaling of small modular reactors?”

Barrón said fully fund the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy and its Loan Programs Office “as well as tax credits in Sections 45U, 45Y, and 48E” of 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

More than $3.7 billion in IRA “clean energy tax credits” are targeted for cuts, although there are exceptions for nuclear energy, with spending plans for DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy slashed by 21 percent and Office of Science by 87 percent in its FY26 spending request.

House Science, Space, and Technology Committee Chair Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas) said the office and DOE loans are “a launch pad, not a permanent lifeline. It’s time for the private sector to … step up” with a greater share of financing for these programs.

“Fortunately, the market is ready. The nuclear renaissance we anticipated in the early 2000s is now within reach,” he said.

Subcommittee Chair Rep. Randy Weber (R-Texas) acknowledged DOE loans and the nuclear office “play a crucial role in AI future success” but there must be greater scrutiny in how taxpayer dollars are allocated.

He noted Palo Alto, Calif,-based Oklo “has championed the use of milestone-based contracts to support the liftoff of advanced reactors,” similar to NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services, “which led developed commercial cargo delivery capabilities to the International Space Station.”

“You have to perform to get funding, instead of just getting a tranche of money that may or may not produce something,” Schweiger agreed.

But cutting one-fifth of the office’s budget and slashing the demonstration project funding by 51 percent is “another reason why I am so disappointed with the administration’s budget proposal for 2026,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) said, calling on Congress to restore the funding.

“We have a real challenge ahead of us,” she said, noting Congress’s goal should be to ensure “we’re skating towards where the puck is going to be,” not where it is now.