DOE issues new NEPA rule and procedures—and accelerates DOME reactor testing

The same day, the DOE announced the final NEPA action for Idaho National Laboratory’s DOME microreactor test bed—a finding of no significant impact (FONSI) to use the repurposed EBR-II dome to test a succession of microreactors.

Wasting no time, the DOE announced DOME’s starting lineup today. First up for testing are Westinghouse and Radiant, which got DOE support to design DOME demos back in October 2023.

Big changes for NEPA: “President Trump promised to break the permitting logjam, and he is delivering,” said Energy Secretary Chris Wright on June 30. “These reforms replace outdated rules with clear deadlines; restore agency authority; and put us back on the path to energy dominance, job creation, and commonsense action. Build, baby, build!”

Trump first targeted NEPA regulations in Executive Order 14154, “Unleashing American Energy,” signed January 20.

The DOE’s new NEPA interim final rule meets the specific requirements in section 6 of Executive Order 14301, “Streamlining Environmental Reviews,” which specifies in part that the energy secretary work with the Council on Environmental Quality to “take action to reform the Department’s rules governing compliance with [NEPA] no later than June 30, 2025” and, “consistent with applicable law, use all available authorities to eliminate or expedite the Department’s environmental reviews for authorizations, permits, approvals, leases, and any other activity requested by an applicant or potential applicant . . . [including] determining which department functions are not subject to NEPA, creating categorical exclusions as appropriate for reactors within certain parameters, [and] relying on supplemental analyses where reactors will be located on existing sites, or utilizing alternative procedures under NEPA.”

What’s new? The DOE Office of NEPA Policy and Compliance explains that the DOE rulemaking will “remove most of the DOE regulations that contain its procedures implementing [NEPA] from the Code of Federal Regulations.”

Effective June 30, and until the future effective date of the DOE’s interim final rule, the DOE is following its new implementation procedures alongside existing NEPA procedures in 10 CFR Part 1021. “Beginning on the effective date of DOE's interim final rule, DOE will rely fully on its new NEPA implementing procedures and the revised version of 10 CFR part 1021 described in this interim final rule.”

According to the DOE, key reforms include the following:

• Reducing the maximum environmental assessment (EA) through environmental impact statement (EIS) report completion time limitations from three years to two years.
• Implementing strict deadlines and page limits.
• Increasing transparency and allowing project sponsors to participate in the process.
• Using “categorical exclusions” for activities that are “regularly conducted and widely understood to not impact the environment.”
• Not considering the environmental effects of separate projects related to the project under consideration.

The DOE’s 82-page “NEPA Implementing Procedures”—which are not regulations—make clear that the procedures will emphasize efficiency, stating in part, “DOE will use all available means to improve the efficiency of its implementation of NEPA. DOE will make maximum use of existing analyses to avoid repeating work completed for previous environmental documents or other purposes. DOE also will coordinate with other agencies to make environmental reviews more efficient for all agencies with a decision to make or action to take regarding a proposal.”

Back to DOME: DOME is operated at INL by the National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC). On May 28, the DOE announced that INL had “received priority rating authorization by the federal government to expedite the construction of the world’s first two microreactor test beds”—DOME and LOTUS—in response to a request in early May from INL citing eligibility under the Defense Production Act.

The DOME FONSI was issued June 25 after a public comment period ended June 13, and it concluded that the preparation of an EIS is not required. A draft EA was issued in October 2024, and a final EA in May. The EA and FONSI cover any experiment that fits within the EA review envelope, meaning that individual reactor tests will not require additional environmental reviews.

That includes reactors developed by Westinghouse and Radiant, which the DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy announced as its “conditional selections” to perform the first self-funded reactor testing July 1. Westinghouse will test a scaled-down version of its eVinci sodium-cooled heat pipe reactor, while Radiant will test its Kaleidos high-temperature, gas-cooled reactor. They were among the companies responding to a call for applications issued May 19 that is expected to be the first in a series of annual applications.

The first experiment “will start as early as spring 2026,” but DOME can host only one reactor at a time for testing estimated to operate “up to six months.” It is not clear at this writing whether Westinghouse or Radiant will be the first of the first.

“Today’s decision for the DOME test bed marks a significant milestone in our efforts to advance microreactor technology,” said NRIC director Brad Tomer in a June 30 DOE press release. “This initiative not only underscores our commitment to innovation and safety but also paves the way for groundbreaking advancements in the field.”

INL’s environmental recommendations: An April 2025 INL report, “Recommendations to Improve Nuclear Licensing,” issued by INL and written by Stephen Burdick, John Wagner, and Jess Gehin at the request of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, included 16 specific recommendations accompanied by an analysis of the need for and feasibility of each recommendation.

A report summary notes that “although there have been many recent and ongoing efforts to incorporate efficiency and timeliness into nuclear licensing, much more can be done.” Sixteen potential reforms are detailed that “should individually and collectively result in significant efficiency and predictability improvements. If implemented, these reforms have the potential to enhance the United States’ stature as a world leader in nuclear safety to also include leadership in timely and efficient nuclear licensing.”

To “expedite environmental reviews,” the report makes the following three recommendations:

• “Eliminate the requirement to perform NEPA reviews for all new nuclear projects and related activities, whether under the jurisdiction of NRC or DOE.” [sec. 3.3.1]
• “Exclude noncommercial reactor projects on DOE sites from NEPA, whether subject to DOE authorization or NRC licensing.” [sec. 3.3.1]
• “DOE and NRC consider and implement new categorical exclusions under NEPA for construction and operation of new nuclear reactors, removing the potential impact of NEPA reviews to new reactor regulatory approvals.” [sec. 3.3.3]

INL lab director and report coauthor John Wagner commented on the report’s scope last week on LinkedIn: “To be clear, INL has not recommended that INL supplant the role of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in any manner; instead, INL made recommendations related to the scope of DOE authority, not INL’s,” he wrote. “DOE has existing authorities under the Atomic Energy Act for approving certain nuclear reactor operations. These authorities could be clarified and expanded to better support advanced reactor demonstrations while maintaining appropriate oversight. It's worth noting that DOE's authorities are complementary to—not competing with—those of the NRC, ensuring robust safety oversight across all nuclear activities.”