House Subcommittee Advances Six Nuclear Bills to Streamline NRC Licensing; Democrats Tie Support to Agency Independence
By Daily Energy Insider
The House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy advanced all six bills on its July 14 markup agenda to the full committee, approving each by voice vote. Five measures amend the Atomic Energy Act to speed Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) licensing — addressing spent-fuel reprocessing, uranium enrichment, uncontested hearings, the agency’s reactor-safety advisory committee, and senior-executive pay — while a sixth would require the Department of Energy (DOE) to publicly disclose its reactor-authorization decisions.
Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio) framed the package as a bipartisan continuation of the 2024 ADVANCE Act, while Democrats backed most of the bills but warned that their support hinges on protecting the NRC’s independence following the Supreme Court’s ruling in Trump v. Slaughter.
Reprocessing and Enrichment: Aligning Fuel-Cycle Licensing
H.R. 3978, the Nuclear REFUEL Act — led by Latta and Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.) — would clarify that spent-fuel reprocessing and recycling facilities are licensed under the same one-step framework as other fuel-cycle facilities, rather than as “production facilities” subject to a longer, two-step review. The subcommittee adopted a manager’s amendment addressing the extraction of isotopes used in space and security missions before advancing the bill.
Peters, whose San Diego-area district neighbors the decommissioned San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, called the bill a useful step but said it does not resolve the underlying problem of long-term spent-fuel storage. Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.) urged colleagues to pair recycling incentives with a durable federal nuclear waste program, warning that recycling “cannot be another excuse to kick the can down the road.”
H.R. 9612, the American Enrichment Deployment Act — introduced by Rep. Russell Fry (R-S.C.) and Rep. Kim Schrier (D-Wash.) — would align licensing for uranium-enrichment facilities with the framework used for conversion and fabrication plants, allowing construction to begin at the applicant’s risk before licensing while leaving safety, environmental, and safeguards requirements intact. Fry said the change is needed as the United States moves to end reliance on Russian enriched uranium, which he said had reached roughly a quarter of reactor fuel and is set to phase out by the end of 2027. Schrier said the country has one operating enrichment plant and emphasized the need for domestic high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU). Both members said further changes may be needed before full committee.
Eliminating Uncontested Hearings
H.R. 5549, the Efficient Nuclear Licensing Hearings Act — sponsored by Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.), Schrier, and Rep. Marc Veasey (D-Texas) — would end the NRC’s mandatory uncontested hearing requirement when no party requests a hearing, while preserving hearings for contested matters. Rep. Troy Balderson (R-Ohio) said the agency already provides more than 20 opportunities for public input in reactor licensing, and Schrier said mandatory uncontested hearings have delayed three advanced-reactor applications facing no opposition, with three more pending.
Advisory Committee Reform Draws the Sharpest Split
H.R. 9613, the Nuclear Advisory Committee Reform Act, drew the markup’s most substantive disagreement. Sponsor Rep. Diana Harshbarger (R-Tenn.) said the bill would refocus the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) on novel and safety-significant issues rather than routine reviews, and pledged to work with Democrats on their concerns before full committee.
Ranking Member Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) said she supported codifying that narrower focus but opposed a provision limiting the ACRS to reviewing applications only when directed by the NRC, arguing the committee must retain the ability to raise issues on its own initiative. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) cited two instances in which the ACRS independently identified safety problems — a cooling vulnerability during NuScale’s small modular reactor review and a corrosion issue in Kairos Power’s Hermes 2 reactor — and said the bill would remove that discretion and permanently write the limitation into law. Castor said she could not support a proposal that would “silence” the committee.
Workforce, Pay, and NRC Independence
H.R. 9614, the NRC Staff Pay Alignment Act, sponsored by Rep. Robert Menendez Jr. (D-N.J.), would extend ADVANCE Act pay authority to career senior executive service (SES) managers at the NRC. Menendez said more than 400 career staff have left the agency since January 2025, with safety-related teams among the hardest hit, and said the bill would help the agency compete with the private sector. Latta said the measure corrects a gap in the ADVANCE Act’s incentive-pay provisions.
The independence question ran through the markup. Full Committee Ranking Member Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) said Democratic support for nuclear legislation would “evaporate” if the administration fires or threatens another NRC commissioner, pointing to the Supreme Court’s Trump v. Slaughter decision permitting removal of independent-agency heads. Menendez said a DOE official who led the agency’s cost-cutting effort had described the goal as making the NRC a “rubber stamp.” Castor separately said the agency has lost nearly 500 professional staff over two years even as more than 100 companies pursue advanced reactors.
DOE Transparency
H.R. 9084, the Department of Energy Nuclear Transparency Act, introduced by Castor, would require DOE to announce and post its reactor-authorization decisions, which Castor said operate separately from the NRC’s commercial licensing process and have drawn limited public disclosure. The subcommittee adopted an amendment by Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) adding carve-outs for classified and security-sensitive information and additional time for public reporting before advancing the bill.
Vote
All six bills were adopted by voice vote and forwarded to the full committee. The subcommittee also adopted, by voice vote, the manager’s amendment to H.R. 3978 and Rep. Miller-Meeks’s amendment to H.R. 9084. No recorded roll-call votes were taken.