OAN Staff Blake Wolf
2:01 PM – Friday, May 23, 2025
President Donald Trump signed four executive orders on Friday, creating a pathway for the Department of Energy (DoE) to ease regulations and build nuclear reactors.
The executive orders call for the overhaul of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which regulates the nation’s nuclear reactors.
Under Trump’s order, the NRC is required to make decisions on nuclear reactor licenses within 18 months, paving the way for additional nuclear reactors in a process that previously took multiple years.
The executive orders also allow for the Energy and Defense departments to build additional nuclear reactors on federal land — which is expected to be utilized for defense and artificial intelligence (AI) programs.
“This allows for safe and reliable nuclear energy to power and operate critical defense facilities and AI data centers,” stated an unnamed administration official speaking with CNBC.
White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios characterized the executive orders as an “historic action to ensure America’s energy dominance and provide affordable, reliable, safe and secure energy to the American people.”
“With these actions, President Trump is telling the world that America will build again, and American nuclear renaissance can begin,” Kratsios continued.
The two most-recent nuclear reactors that were developed at Plant Vogtle near Augusta, Georgia, took seven years longer than the original plan. They also cost $18 billion over the budget — due to “regulatory hurdles.”
The computer technology industry gains to benefit the most from the nuclear reactors as rapidly developing AI data centers demand substantial energy in the highly competitive industry.
Meanwhile, President Trump’s executive orders marks a shift in the United States’ stance on nuclear energy, previously neglecting its capabilities due to environmental concerns stemming from previous nuclear meltdowns like the Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1979.
In addition, one of the executive orders calls for the United States to mine and enrich uranium — decreasing the reliance on foreign uranium while domestically creating power for nuclear reactors.
The Trump White House has maintained that nuclear energy is “necessary to power the next generation technologies that secure our global industrial, digital, and economic dominance, achieve energy independence, and protect our national security.”
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