Trump order: Advanced reactors for military purposes can be NEPA-exempt

In an aim to use nuclear energy technology for defense-related purposes, President Donald Trump’s May 23 executive order wants advanced nuclear reactors put on military installations without consulting the National Environmental Policy Act.

Trump’s executive order entitled “Deploying Advanced Nuclear Reactor Technologies for National Security,” one of four nuclear-themed executive orders released last week, said the U.S. “faces a critical national security imperative to ensure a resilient, secure, and reliable energy supply for critical defense facilities.” 

The order declared that within 240 days, the secretary of defense should submit legislative proposals with other secretaries “regarding the distribution, operation, replacement, and removal of advanced nuclear reactors and spent nuclear fuel on military installations.”

The secretaries of defense and energy are also ordered to execute agreements for any DOE technical advisory support at DoD installations. Support for finding uses for nuclear reactor technologies can come in the form of “research, development, design, acquisition, specification, construction, inspection, installation, certification, testing, overhaul, refueling, operation, maintenance, supply support, and disposition of advanced nuclear reactor technologies,” the order said.

DOE and the Defense Department can use “established categorical exclusions under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to build advanced nuclear reactor technologies on certain federal sites, according to the order. 

Secretary of Energy Chris Wright also has 90 days to identify any uranium and plutonium material that can be used and recycled into nuclear fuel for the reactors. At least 20 metric tons of high assay low-enriched uranium is ordered to be released by the energy secretary to the private sector into a “fuel bank” for government authorized work at a DOE site to power related infrastructure.