Energy Department Secretly Rewrites Safety Orders to Accelerate New Reactor Program

In a rapid internal overhaul, the Energy Department recast a suite of its nuclear safety and security orders and circulated them to industry applicants while withholding the new text from public view. The changes—which compress, consolidate and remove large blocks of requirements—were undertaken to support a presidentially directed pilot program that aims to bring experimental reactors to criticality on an aggressive timeline. Review documents show substantial page reductions across multiple directives, with some security guidance consolidated from hundreds of pages into a single short order and detailed radioactive-waste procedures pared down. Technical standards that have guided radiation protection and system accountability for decades were relaxed in the revised orders, including removal of a prescriptive worker-exposure risk management approach and elimination of a named engineering role responsible for each critical safety system. The department paired the rewritten orders with a fast-track authorization pathway managed by DOE staff and a “concierge” coordination team that reports to senior officials, creating an expedited review pipeline for participating companies. About a dozen new orders, used by roughly thirty DOE reviewers and a dozen NRC detailees, are now being applied to eleven proposed reactor designs from ten firms. Proponents argue the rewrite reduces cost and schedule burdens that have historically slowed innovation in advanced reactor designs, and they point to commercial interest backed by large tech and private investors. Critics counter that removing explicit technical requirements makes compliance less predictable, risks runs-ins with other environmental and public-health statutes, and shifts safety judgment from an independent regulator to program staff. The consolidation of security directives and softer language on discharges and environmental protection raise particular concerns about material protection and groundwater safeguards. Legally, changes to internal DOE orders avoid the public notice-and-comment process that governs changes to binding federal regulations, limiting external scrutiny and accountability. Operationally, experts doubt the administrative compression alone will meet the tight program deadlines because clearer requirements often speed—rather than slow—compliance. Politically, the lack of transparency and the role of senior-office coordination teams may erode public confidence in a sector already sensitive to community acceptance. The combination of truncated technical direction, accelerated timelines and closed-door policymaking creates a set of trade-offs that are likely to shape whether the pilot program advances safely, on time, and within the bounds of other federal environmental and safety laws.