Trump fires NRC commissioner, backs Valley nuclear push
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- Seth Cohen convened a meeting at Idaho National Laboratory and dismissed radiation safety concerns, saying “I don’t know, like 70 people live there” about Utah test sites.
- Trump administration fired NRC Commissioner Christopher Hanson in June, the first time an NRC commissioner has been dismissed.
- NRC has lost over 400 staff since Trump took office, especially in reactor and nuclear materials safety, while hiring slowed to about 60 new hires in the first year versus 350 in the previous year.
- Executive orders signed by Trump direct the NRC to cut its workforce, speed up reactor approvals, and rewrite safety rules to quadruple nuclear output for AI data centers.
- Valar Atomics received promotional hats from Cohen at NRC offices, showing Silicon Valley nuclear startups’ growing policy influence.
- Allison Macfarlane warned that the NRC is no longer independent and that the safety culture is under threat.
- DOE nuclear office lost about a third of its staff, and the NRC’s top attorney resigned, being replaced by oil‑and‑gas lawyer David Taggart.
Why it matters: Industry investors and AI data‑center operators stand to gain from faster reactor approvals and increased nuclear capacity, while the NRC’s loss of experienced staff and diminished independence risk eroding safety oversight, potentially compromising public health and environmental protections, echoing past accidents caused by regulatory capture.
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