FIRST ON FOX: A Republican Florida congressman is looking to codify several of President Donald Trump's executive actions pertaining to domestic energy production through legislative action he took Monday.
Rep. Byron Donalds, who has been endorsed by Trump to replace term-limited Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, introduced the "Strengthening American Nuclear Energy Act" in an effort to codify four of the president's executive actions related to boosting nuclear energy production and use in the United States. Trump signed the orders late last-month.
"In November, the American people granted us an unprecedented mandate to implement President Trump's America First Agenda. Now more than ever, it's up to Congress to hold up our end of the bargain," Donalds told Fox News Digital. "Energy security is national security, and it's imperative that our nation re-asserts our dominance in the nuclear space."
On May 23, Trump signed four executive orders aimed at accelerating the development and deployment of nuclear energy in the United States.
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One of those orders, the "Deploying Advanced Nuclear Reactor Technologies for National Security," directs the Army to build a nuclear reactor "at a domestic military base or installation" by September 30, 2028. The order also directs the Secretary of Energy to establish artificial intelligence data centers that run on nuclear energy at Department of Energy facilities across the 48 contiguous States and the District of Columbia, with the goal of having the first one completed within the next 30-months. Finally, in addition to these measures and others, the wide-ranging executive order directs the country to pursue at least 20 new international nuclear cooperation agreements.
Meanwhile, another one of the orders that Donalds' legislation seeks to codify compels the Secretaries of Defense, Transportation and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to prepare a comprehensive report within 240 days of when the order was signed. The report is supposed to include a national strategy to support the management of spent nuclear fuel and other "high-level waste," an evaluation of the current reprocessing and recycling efforts related to spent nuclear fuel and recommendations on how to improve it, and a program to develop methods and techniques for transporting used and unused nuclear fuel.
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The order also includes several other timelines, including one for the publication of a report on how to strengthen domestic uranium conversion capacity and enrichment capabilities. It also imposes timelines for the government to update its nuclear energy policies to spur production, and says that at least 10 large nuclear reactors must be under construction no later than 2030.
The final two orders from Trump, which Donalds is seeking to codify, are largely aimed at reducing regulatory burdens surrounding nuclear energy production.
The first of the two seeks to reform the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in order to help accelerate domestic nuclear energy production. The order aims to do away with what it describes as the NRC's excessive caution that has hindered the growth of nuclear energy in the United States.
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The second regulatory-focused nuclear energy directive from Trump is aimed at reforming the Department of Energy's nuclear reactor testing, in an effort to speed up the development of nuclear power plants. For instance, the order requires officials at the Energy Department to revise internal procedures to ensure that new reactors can become operational within two years of when builders apply to construct it.
The safety risks of nuclear energy have long been a debate among energy policymakers in Washington. Part of Trump's orders are to expedite some of the safety regulations which his administration claims have been stifling domestic nuclear energy production.
However, nuclear energy experts, such as Ernest Moniz, an Obama-era energy secretary and nuclear physicist, have said Trump's move to reform the NRC could be problematic.
"Reorganizing and reducing the independence of the NRC could lead to the hasty deployment of advanced reactors with safety and security flaws," Moniz told the Washington Post. "A major event would, like those in the past, increase regulatory requirements and set back nuclear energy for a long time."
Others, such as Paul Dickman, a former senior staffer on the NRC, have said Trump's reforms have "no scientific foundation."
"You can't just do this by fiat," Dickman told the Post.
