White House Executive Orders Target Ambitious Nuclear Deployment in the United States and Abroad

Greater clarity emerged in the Trump administration’s push for nuclear energy on May 23, when the White House released four executive orders (EOs) related to the firm, clean, baseload power. Collectively, the four EOs address all key elements of the nuclear ecosystem in which the United States seeks to re-establish leadership, and include the following:

• Deploying Advanced Nuclear Reactor Technologies for National Security (EO 14299): Aims to accelerate the use of advanced nuclear technologies to support military operations, national defense infrastructure, and critical government energy needs; calls for increasing exports of U.S. nuclear technology, expanding domestic fuel recycling capacity, and establishing categorical exclusions under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) for construction of nuclear reactors on federal sites.
• Ordering the Reform of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) (EO 14300): Seeks to overhaul the NRC by streamlining licensing processes, reducing bureaucracy, accelerating approval of reactor designs, and considering the economic and national security benefits when licensing nuclear reactors; sets a target of quadrupling U.S. nuclear energy capacity to a total of 400 gigawatts (GW) by 2050.
• Reforming Nuclear Reactor Testing at the Department of Energy (DOE) (EO 14301): Directs the DOE to expedite the review, approval, and deployment of reactors at the DOE and national lab sites and to create a pilot program for reactor construction and operation outside the National Laboratories.
• Reinvigorating the Nuclear Industrial Base (EO 14302): Calls for initiatives promoting workforce development, expanding domestic fuel supply, evaluating management of spent nuclear fuel, restarting shuttered plants, supporting advanced reactor deployment, and enhancing spent fuel management; sets a target for 10 new large reactors and 5 gigawatts (GW) of power uprates to be under construction by 2030 to support AI data centers and U.S. economic competitiveness.
   

Expanded Nuclear Ambitions

The Trump administration has doubled down on its ambition for nuclear leadership, targeting a quadrupling of U.S. commercial capacity by 2050—a total net addition of 300 GW (EO 14300). This is a 50 percent increase from the already ambitious domestic target of 200 GW net addition by 2050 set by the Biden administration in November 2024.

Also eye-catching is EO 14302’s call to uprate the existing nuclear fleet by 5 GW and to have 10 new large reactors with complete designs under construction by 2030. This EO therefore essentially calls for 10 new units of Westinghouse AP1000s (approximately 10 GW of capacity); currently, there are only two new AP1000s authorized by the NRC at Turkey Point (initially approved in 2009 and extended in 2024), but the utility has not yet moved forward with construction.

These aggressive nuclear deployment targets could generate significant tailwinds for restarting nuclear plants that have prematurely retired for economic reasons. The ongoing construction at previously shuttered Palisades and Three Mile Island are demonstrating the technical, regulatory, and financial requirements of this endeavor—though out of the two dozen nuclear plants that have been shut down in the last 50 years, only a small handful might be feasible to restart. Similarly, the administration’s support may reinvigorate investment in stalled projects, like the two unfinished nuclear reactors at VC Summer plant in South Carolina, whose construction was paused in 2017.

Bridging Policy and Funding

These stated policy objectives for an expanded nuclear industry hinge on adequate federal funding and legislative support. Nuclear projects, including uprates, restarts, completion, and construction of nuclear reactors, are exceptionally capitally intensive. The two AP1000 units at Vogtle (Units 3 and 4), completed in 2023 and 2024, respectively, took 15 years to build and cost over $36 billion. While these were first-of-a-kind projects in the United States and costs are expected to decline for subsequent AP1000s, financing remains the largest hurdle facing developers. The high capital cost, long lead times, and regulatory complexity of large nuclear reactors require significant public participation to de-risk these projects. Historically, nearly all U.S. nuclear reactors received federal support through mechanisms such as loan guarantees, tax incentives, and accelerated depreciation schedules; Vogtle 3 and 4 received $12 billion in loan guarantees from the Department of Energy (DOE) Loan Programs Office (LPO).

The EOs specifically identify the LPO as a key tool for implementing the accelerated deployment of commercial nuclear reactors, but they notably come a week after the House passed a reconciliation bill eliminating the LPO’s unused Inflation Reduction Act funding for credit subsidies and challenging its operational capacity. The White House FY 2026 budget request, however, proposes $750 million in appropriated credit subsidy specifically for small modular reactors or advanced nuclear reactors. While cutting the Office of Nuclear Energy by 25 percent, the budget seeks to reorient federal spending across the DOE to specifically align around the priorities of these EOs. Whether Congress enacts these requests and whether enough staff and institutional knowledge remain in the agency to execute on these priorities are also important questions.

Further compounding these challenges, the House reconciliation bill eliminated the transferability provision of the technology-neutral tax credits—a move especially detrimental to nuclear project financing—and imparted strict foreign entity of concern restrictions as an eligibility requirement. If either or both provisions remain in the final reconciliation bill, it would be difficult for a nuclear project to qualify for the tax credits and raise adequate capital.

Regaining U.S. Leadership on Nuclear Research and Development

National security and the urgent sense of geoeconomic competition are preeminent themes across the suite of EOs. EO 14302 explicitly highlights nuclear energy as a key enabler of U.S. leadership in fields like artificial intelligence and calls for co-locating advanced reactors and AI on DOE sites. The approach to link federal lands and AI infrastructure dates back to the now-rescinded Biden administration Executive Order on Advancing United States Leadership in Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure (EO 14110 signed on January 14, 2025). The Trump EO illuminates how both political parties have come to see a proactive role for the federal government in leading the global AI competition and helping to secure its energy requirement.

Driven by the desire to preserve nuclear energy competitiveness globally, the EOs cover nearly the entire span of the nuclear value chain, with the exception of uranium mining, which is addressed by a separate executive order from March. The scope does not shy away from the fact that the nuclear industrial base is uniquely dual-purpose; the EO argues for the importance of securing fuel supply for advanced reactors for commercial power generation and nuclear weapons alike.

Beyond economic competitiveness and national security, nuclear innovation is a source of geopolitical leverage. Leading research and development in nuclear reactor technologies has accorded significant power to the United States, not only as an exporter of nuclear power technologies but also a leader in nuclear nonproliferation and security. The nuclear research and development (R&D) ecosystem that the Trump administration seeks to achieve significantly depends on the continued excellence of leading R&D institutions, such as DOE national laboratories (EO 14301). One of the EO goals is for at least three reactors from a new DOE pilot program for reactor construction and operation outside the national laboratories to “achiev[e] criticality” by early July 2026. Given the short target timeline, what the EO means by “criticality” likely differs from how the term is conventionally defined in nuclear science and technology; criticality is a state in which nuclear fuel sustains a fission chain reaction. For DOE-owned or controlled facilities, the EO instructs the DOE to conduct reactor review, approval, and deployment within two years following the “submission of a substantially complete application.” The administration’s proposed FY 2026 budget reduction across the Department of Energy—including cuts to the Office of Science, which supports research at the National Labs—raise concerns about whether they align with the DOE’s enhanced responsibilities and leadership in this field.

Regulatory Reform

Striking the right balance between the economic, national security, and geopolitical benefits of advancing nuclear technologies, and the health and environmental considerations, is no easy task. The Ordering the Reform of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission executive order (EO 14300) seeks a major reset in how the United States’ regulatory body approaches this task. The administration’s proposed changes to the NRC’s culture, structure, and regulations are intended to mitigate the “domestic and geopolitical costs” of risk aversion it sees in the existing NRC. Such changes include the establishment of an 18-month limit to the licensing process for a new reactor of any type, as well as the overhaul of radiation exposure rules.

Pursuing modernization is part of a healthy and competitive regulatory system. Accomplishing changes, where merited, with scientific rigor and technical independence is crucial for the continued, strong reputation that the NRC has around the world. It would take both the strong domestic reactor deployment and the regulatory excellence for markets abroad to favor U.S. reactors over reactors produced by other countries. The Trump administration’s goal of quadrupling the United States’ installed nuclear power capacity by 2050 will not only benefit from the modernization of current regulatory practices, but also necessitates a robust workforce and the independence of the nation’s regulatory body.

Global Commercial Leadership

The other avenue for U.S. reactor deployment is through exports abroad. Specific EO tasking includes a more strategic use of federal financial institutions, such as the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), the U.S. Trade and Development Agency, as well as the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM). The call for greater provision of equity by the DFC could not be timelier, as Congress debates the corporation’s re-authorization this year. Another highlight is the administration’s resolve to alleviate or remove the multi-decadal aversion to nuclear financing at multilateral development banks (MDBs). Such changes would be a necessary step toward rectifying the disadvantage that the United States faces and ensuring a level playing field against countries that view nuclear commerce as an extension of their geopolitical outreach and thus heavily subsidize nuclear technology exports. 

At the same time, EO 14299 also sets the goal of “pursu[ing] at least 20 new 123 Agreements” by the end of 2028. The 123 Agreements refer to Section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, which outlines key nuclear nonproliferation criteria required for the United States to engage in civil nuclear cooperation with other countries. Washington has concluded 25 of such agreements. Concluding 20 new agreements while also renegotiating those that are due to expire by 2039, as also instructed by EO 14299, would require robust legal, technological, and nuclear security expertise among the federal ranks.

From Ambition to Execution

Collectively, the four executive orders on nuclear energy underscore the administration’s ambition to significantly expand the role of nuclear energy in the national energy mix. By setting deployment targets to meet surging U.S. energy demand growth and power AI data centers, manufacturing, and national security needs, the EOs explicitly link a strong commercial nuclear industry to U.S. economic competitiveness and geopolitical influence. However, the true measure of this ambition lies not in the EOs themselves, but in their execution, which currently faces significant headwinds related to federal funding and legislative support. The degree to which congressional support aligns with these priorities—ensuring adequate funding in the FY 2026 budget, providing necessary funding and authority in the DFC reauthorization, and continuing to incentivize nuclear energy deployment in the final version of the reconciliation bill—will determine whether these EOs can be successfully translated into operational capacity. Without robust and consistent federal funding, the ambitions outlined in the EOs will remain largely unfilled, jeopardizing the United States’ continued global nuclear leadership.

Jane Nakano is a senior fellow in the Energy Security and Climate Change Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Leslie Abrahams is a deputy director and senior fellow with the Energy Security and Climate Change program at CSIS.