Trump's nuclear power -push -push regulator and security risks, warn former civil servants

President Donald Trump's urge to approve nuclear power plants as soon as possible threatens to weaken the independent supervisory authority, which is commissioned to protect public health and security, warn of former federal officials.

In May, Trump placed four comprehensive execution orders that aim to quadruple the nuclear energy in the United States in the United States in the White House and the technology industry as a powerful source for reliable electricity that can help to meet the growing energy requirements of artificial intelligence.

The consequence of Trump's orders aims to reduce the regulations and to accelerate the permits of the power plant by revising the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC is an independent agency that was set up by the congress in 1975 to ensure that nuclear reactors are used safely and operated safely.

Trump accuses the NRC in its order of the NRC of the “risk aversion” and responsible for the fact that only a few nuclear power plants in the United States have been built in the United States in the past three decades. The President says that the NRC focuses on protecting the public from “the most distant risks” and argues that such a cautious approach to the approval of plants restricts access to reliable electricity.

“We will be very safe, but we will be quick and safe,” said Trump on Tuesday at a conference about energy and artificial intelligence in Pittsburgh. The president said his government would get a “completely different group of people” to regulate the industry.

Three former NRC chairwoman who spoke to CNBC say that Trump accuses the regulatory authority, which protects the public if the basic problem of the industry is that new nuclear power plants are incredibly expensive to build. The chairs were appointed by democratic presidents. CNBC also spoke to the chief of staff for a chair appointed by George W. Bush.

In the past 30 years, only two new reactors have been built from scratch in the United States. These new units in Plant Vogtle in Georgia came over the budget and seven years behind the schedule of $ 18 billion. Two reactors in South Carolina were canceled in 2017 due to costs. The mismanagement of Georgia and South Carolina's projects led to the bankruptcy of the Westinghouse industry stall.

Trump's intervention at the NRC threatens the independence that the supervisory authority needs to protect public interest, said the former chairpersons. If the NRC independence is impaired, the regulatory authority could be susceptible to the influence of industry or the government in a way that increases the risk of nuclear accident.

Trump's Executive Order is unprecedented and dangerous in the history of the NRC, said Allison MacFarlane, who headed the NRC from 2012 to 2014 as chairman. Fukushima's nuclear accident is an example of what can happen if security regulators are not independent, said MacFarlane, who was appointed by President Barack Obama.

The earthquake and Tsunami 2011 in Japan led to a serious accident in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. An examination of the Japanese parliament came to the conclusion that the accident was artificial and showed that the agreement between government, industry and supervisory authorities was the main cause.

Japan's supervisory authorities and the government focused on promoting nuclear energy as safe and forced the operator to implement measures that the system would have made less susceptible to a natural disaster according to the 2012 investigation. After the accident, Japan included all nuclear power plants for security inspections and lost a power source that provided 30% of the country's electricity.

“There were massive effects on the economy and that is a topic of national security,” said MacFarlane about the accident in Japan.

“The reason why we have independent supervisory authorities, and with independent reason I am free of industry and political influence, it is to protect public security and protect national security,” she said.

Trump's Executive Order seems to focus more quickly on the approval of reactors than on safety, said Stephen Burns, who headed the NRC from 2015 to 2017. The order requires the NRC to make final decisions for the construction and operation of nuclear power plants within 18 months. The regulatory authority calls on to make decisions even faster if possible.

“To the extent that it is said that NRC is the problem, and we are more concerned with deadlines than with the security case – it affects me there,” said Burns, who was also appointed to the Commission.

The NRC is also instructed to carry out a “wholesale revision” of its regulations and to work with the government's office and household office and the government's efficiency in order to achieve this.

One of the goals in revising the NRC regulations is to create a process that is to be approved with a “high -volume” microreactor and small modular reactors, advanced nuclear technologies, of which the industry believes that one day they will build up the plants cheaper and faster.

However, these advanced reactors often have designs that differ greatly from the existing US fleet and subsequently present different security profiles, said Richard Meserve, who headed the NRC from 1999 to 2003. These new designs have not been used in the real world in the real world, and some use different reactor funds such as sodium or melted salt, but in traditional swing.

“We have very strict deadlines for reactors of a type that have not yet been thoroughly checked,” said Meserve, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton. “The deadlines seem to be very unclear. There must be a careful analysis that is directed by data that may not be available for some of these reactors.”

And it is unclear what role omb and Doge play when revising the regulations of the NRC. The NRC and the White House refused to comment when it was asked whether omb and Doge would have the last word about how the regulations had changed.

OMB has always checked the most important NRC regulations as a procedure, said Paul Dickman, who worked as head of the chairman of the NRC chairman Dale Klein, an appointment by President George W. Bush. (Klein turned to Dickman when he was asked to comment.

The question now is whether omb and Doge will also enter the judgment on the technical content of the regulations, said Dickman. The undefined role of the couple in the review process introduces uncertainty that could make the NRC susceptible to political interference, he said.

“Will you reject something because you didn't like an opinion?” Asked Dickman. “What is the basis for this? There are no guidelines for checking.”

Trump “undertakes to modernize the nuclear regulations, to rationalize regulatory obstacles and to reform the nuclear regulatory commission and at the same time prioritize security and resistance,” said Harrison Fields Harrison Fields of the White House.

The NRC quickly “works” to implement the instructions for managers in order to modernize our regulatory and licensing processes and at the same time protect public health and security, “said spokesman Scott Burnell.

Trump also ordered a reduction in employees at the NRC at a time when the regulatory authority is now exposed to closer deadlines and a great revision of their regulations, according to the former chairpersons. An executive order that calls for shortcuts is “just another way to get people to look for other jobs” is just another way to look for other jobs. “ Said Dickman.

“It is a loss of personnel and competence that is probably the most worrying part of all these things,” said Dickman.

A high -ranking official of the White House announced in May that the size of the personnel cuts had not been determined. The executive order enables the increase in personnel licensing. The NRC and the White House rejected a statement when CNBC asked them about the potential cuts and whether the license employees would be reinforced.

Last month, Trump released the NRC Commissioner Christopher Hanson, who was appointed by President Joe Biden. In an explanation, Hanson said that Trump had “ended his position for no reason against the existing law and the long -term precedent in terms of removal of independent agencies”. The White House rejected a statement when asked why Hanson was fired.

“This is part of the fall of the NRC as an independent agency,” said Meserve.

Political interference, whether real or perceived, undermines the trust of the United States into nuclear power, said Dickman. Such an interference would also affect the reputation of the NRC as an international gold standard for the approval of reactors, which would be more difficult for US companies, according to MacFarlane, Burns and Meserve, to sell nuclear technology abroad.

“The public's trust in the security of reactors is improved by the fact that there is an independent regulatory authority that is separated from the political process,” said Meserve. “There is a risk that you will mix political considerations and promotions together with the security mission that the security mission will be suppressed to a certain extent – and you could fulfill some very bad mistakes.”