Six bipartisan bills from the House Energy and Commerce Committee, scheduled for votes under suspension of the rules on Monday, would loosen hearing and review requirements at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and ease licensing for fuel recycling and uranium enrichment, without touching California’s own limits on new reactors.
The House returns on Monday with a block of nuclear-power bills at the top of its agenda. The Majority Leader’s floor schedule for the week of Nov. 9 lists six measures from the Energy and Commerce Committee for consideration under suspension of the rules, a fast-track procedure that bars amendments and requires a two-thirds vote to pass. The House meets at 2 p.m. Eastern for legislative business, and votes are postponed until 6:30 p.m.
The bills are H.R. 3978, the Nuclear REFUEL Act; H.R. 5549, the Efficient Nuclear Licensing Hearings Act; H.R. 9084, the Department of Energy Nuclear Transparency Act; H.R. 9612, the American Enrichment Deployment Act; H.R. 9613, the Nuclear Advisory Committee Reform Act; and H.R. 9614, the NRC Staff Pay Alignment Act. The texts are posted on the House Clerk’s bills-this-week page. Four are listed “as amended,” meaning the floor text differs from the version first introduced.
None reached the floor on a party-line vote. At a Sept. 2 markup, the committee reported all six without a recorded no vote: 44 to 0 for the REFUEL Act and the hearings bill, 43 to 0 for the enrichment bill, 42 to 0 for the pay bill and 41 to 0 for the advisory-committee and transparency bills.
This is a separate track from the Senate’s permitting package, whose first procedural test The Inquirer previewed on Sunday. The House bills are narrower, and each amends nuclear law.
What the bills would do
The REFUEL Act, introduced by Rep. Bob Latta, an Ohio Republican, with Rep. Scott Peters, a San Diego Democrat, would change how the federal government classifies equipment that recycles spent reactor fuel. Under the bill, a facility that reprocesses spent fuel “in a manner that does not isolate plutonium” would no longer fall under the Atomic Energy Act’s definition of a “production facility,” the category that also covers plants that make weapons material. The United States has not reprocessed commercial spent fuel since the 1970s, when concerns about plutonium and weapons proliferation led Washington to step back from it; the bill’s carve-out is limited to processes that keep plutonium mixed with other elements.
The Efficient Nuclear Licensing Hearings Act, from Rep. Morgan Griffith, a Virginia Republican, with Democratic Reps. Kim Schrier of Washington and Marc Veasey of Texas, would end the requirement that the commission hold a hearing on every construction permit or operating license even when no one has asked for one. In uncontested cases, the commission could act after 30 days’ notice in the Federal Register. Anyone whose interests may be affected could still request a hearing, and the bill directs the commission to use informal procedures for hearings it holds. The change would apply to applications already pending.
The American Enrichment Deployment Act, from Rep. Russell Fry, a South Carolina Republican, with Ms. Schrier and Rep. Erin Houchin, an Indiana Republican, rewrites the opening of the section of the Atomic Energy Act that sets special licensing procedures for uranium enrichment plants. It would allow construction of an enrichment plant to begin before a license is issued, “at risk,” on the same terms that apply to other fuel-cycle facilities, and would give the commission 180 days to write rules. The bill says it does not limit the commission’s power to deny a license, does not change how the National Environmental Policy Act applies, and does not affect the right of anyone with an interest in a licensing proceeding to request a hearing.
The Nuclear Advisory Committee Reform Act, from Rep. Diana Harshbarger, a Tennessee Republican, and Rep. Craig Goldman, a Texas Republican, would rewrite the charter of the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, the independent panel of technical experts that reviews reactor applications. Members appointed after enactment could serve no more than two four-year terms unless the commission found a compelling need. The committee would be told to focus, where practicable, on issues that are safety-significant, novel and directly related to design, and it could decline to review an application that raises nothing “unique, novel, or noteworthy.”
The NRC Staff Pay Alignment Act, from Rep. Rob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, would let the commission’s chairman pay senior career executives up to 110 percent of the top rate for the agency’s Senior Executive Service positions, to compete for experienced staff. The Department of Energy Nuclear Transparency Act, from Rep. Kathy Castor, a Florida Democrat, would require the Energy Department to post public notice within 72 hours when it changes safety directives or standards for the nuclear facilities it oversees, issues safety analyses for them or authorizes one, and to report each year to Congress, with commercially sensitive and classified information withheld.
The case for, and the questions
The committee’s Republican majority presents the package as a way to bring more reliable power onto the grid faster and at lower cost. “We know that success for the nuclear industry—from the fuels, manufacturers, and reactors to the operators and workers—will be essential for long term American technological leadership globally and for reliable and abundant energy here at home,” Chairman Brett Guthrie, a Kentucky Republican, said after the markup. Rep. Tom Kean Jr., a New Jersey Republican, said the hearings bill would “get more clean, safe power on the grid quicker and at a lower cost, while still including opportunities for public engagement and expert review.”
That goal lines up with the Trump administration’s. In May 2025, President Trump signed executive orders directing an overhaul of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, including firm deadlines for licensing decisions, and setting a goal of quadrupling American nuclear capacity by 2050. The administration has argued that faster licensing is essential to energy dominance, grid reliability and the electricity demands of artificial intelligence. The Inquirer did not find a formal statement of administration policy on the six bills.
Democrats wrote or co-sponsored five of the six, including the transparency and pay bills. The open questions are less about partisanship than about trade-offs: whether ending automatic hearings and letting the safety advisory committee pass on routine applications will speed licensing without thinning public scrutiny, and whether a new path for reprocessing revives the proliferation concerns that halted it half a century ago. The bills’ texts try to answer some of that by preserving hearing rights on request, NEPA review for enrichment plants and the commission’s authority to say no.
What it means for California
California’s only operating nuclear plant is Diablo Canyon, on the coast of San Luis Obispo County. Its federal licenses are not at issue on Monday. The commission renewed them in April for 20 more years, through Nov. 2, 2044, for Unit 1 and Aug. 26, 2045, for Unit 2, an approval Gov. Gavin Newsom welcomed. State law, under the 2022 legislation that kept the plant open, still contemplates operations ending around 2030 unless the Legislature acts. None of the six bills names Diablo Canyon or changes its licenses.
The effects for California would be indirect. A shorter path through uncontested hearings and advisory review would apply to any future reactor application, including license amendments, in any state. The pay bill is aimed at the staff who review such applications. But California’s own law is a larger barrier to new reactors than federal procedure: since 1976, the state has barred new nuclear plants until it finds that a federally approved technology exists for permanently disposing of high-level nuclear waste. Nothing in the House bills changes that.
The REFUEL Act carries the most obvious California connection, through Mr. Peters, a co-author. Spent fuel from Diablo Canyon and from the shuttered San Onofre plant in San Diego County is stored at the two sites, with no federal repository to take it. Easier licensing for recycling that does not isolate plutonium would not move that fuel, but it would change the federal rules for one possible long-term alternative to storage.
If two-thirds of the House agrees on Monday, the bills would go to the Senate, where the Environment and Public Works Committee has jurisdiction over the commission. The Inquirer will report how California’s members vote.
Callum Petrossian covers the House Natural Resources, Energy and Commerce, and Transportation and Infrastructure committees, from power grids and offshore leasing to water projects, highways and disaster aid, for the Inquirer’s Energy & Environment desk. More from Callum Petrossian
