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Summary

Section 1 . Purpose . Abundant energy is a vital national- and economic-security interest. In conjunction with domestic fossil fuel production, nuclear energy can liberate America from dependence on geopolitical rivals. It can power not only traditional manufacturing industries but also cutting-edge, energy-intensive industries such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing. Between 1954 and 1978, the United States authorized the construction of 133 since- completed civilian nuclear reactors at 81 power plants. Since 1978, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has authorized only a fraction of that number; of these, only two reactors have entered into commercial operation. The NRC charges applicants by the hour to process license applications, with prolonged timelines that maximize fees while throttling nuclear power development. The NRC has failed to license new reactors even as technological advances promise to make nuclear power safer, cheaper, more adaptable, and more abundant than ever. This failure stems from a fundamental error: Instead of efficiently promoting safe, abundant nuclear energy, the NRC has instead tried to insulate Americans from the most remote risks without appropriate regard for the severe domestic and geopolitical costs of such risk aversion. The NRC utilizes safety models that posit there is no safe threshold of radiation exposure and that harm is directly proportional to the amount of exposure. Those models lack sound scientific basis and p

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