The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is beyond reach of many of the executive orders President Donald Trump has signed in his early months in office, but the agency will continue to consider the spirit of those directives, NRC Chairwoman Kristine Svinicki said Wednesday.
The White House’s orders include a freeze on all new or proposed federal regulations under consideration in Executive Branch departments and agencies, with exceptions to rules impacting health, safety, financial, or national security matters. The NRC has said it continues to process regulations and guidance documents in accordance with the agency’s independent health and safety mission.
“The agency has been taking a very systematic look at the executive orders as they’ve been issued,” Svinicki said Wednesday, during her appearance at the NRC’s annual Regulatory Information Conference. “As an independent agency in the strictest sense, we are in some ways beyond the reach of the specific measures in some of those orders, but I think as an agency, we look also to the spirit and the intent of various executive orders.”
Some of Trump’s orders are intended to shrink federal bureaucracy and what the administration sees as burdensome regulation. One executive order called for a “one-in, two-out” plan that requires federal agencies to designate two regulations to abolish for every new rule approved.
Svinicki said the agency continuously looks to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of NRC regulations. On this matter, the NRC has repeatedly pointed to Project AIM, its effort to remove redundant operations and services, and its 2019 decommissioning rulemaking, an attempt to improve and clarify details in the nuclear reactor decommissioning process.
