Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chair Ho Nieh assured industry professionals at a Seattle advanced reactors summit that there’s no White House ‘takeover of NRC.’

ARLINGTON, Va. — Last week, United States Nuclear Industry Council (USNIC) Chairman Jeffrey Merrifield's fireside chat with U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Chairman Ho Nieh at the Advanced Reactors Summit XIII was featured in an Epoch Times article.

Read the full article in The Epoch Times via John Haughey here and below.

Nuclear Chief Lauds Trump Reforms but Says His Agency Will Maintain Its Independence

The Epoch Times

John Haughey

February 12, 2026

SEATTLE—When President Donald Trump tabbed Ho Nieh to chair the five-member Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in December 2025, it was the third leadership change in less than six months at the nation’s nuclear licensing agency, including the unprecedented removal of a sitting commissioner.

The rapid turnover generated concern and criticism.

Nuclear energy opponents claimed that the administration was sacrificing safety for speed. Investors waffled, fearing disarray.

Democrats accused the president of exploiting, if not exceeding, his executive authority in remolding the independent commission into a White House proxy.

None of it is true, Nieh told more than 400 nuclear industry professionals on Feb. 11 at the U.S. Nuclear Industry Council’s 13th annual Advanced Reactors Summit at the Seattle Marriott Waterfront.

“The NRC is still an independent agency,” he said.

“I want to just say that up front: There’s no takeover of NRC that I’ve experienced.

“No one from outside of the agency or other federal parts of the government [is] telling the NRC what decision to make. There’s no rubber-stamping.”

Nieh, who worked at the agency for more than 20 years, serving as director of its Nuclear Reactor Regulation unit before leaving in 2021, was among two commissioners appointed by the president in December to fill seats vacated by Christopher Hanson, who was fired in June 2025 after being removed as chair on the president’s first day in office, and Annie Caputo, who resigned in July.

Hanson, a Democrat appointed by President Joe Biden in 2021, and Caputo, a Republican appointed by Trump in 2017, were succeeded by Republicans Nieh and Douglas Weaver, who will serve five-year terms.

No more than three commissioners may be of the same political party.

Republican David Wright had been serving as chair since July before Nieh was appointed on Jan. 9. He remains on the commission.

During a January House hearing, Democrats said Trump’s firing of NRC commissioners is “politicalizing the agency’s independence.”

They said that his executive order 14300—one of four “nuclear renaissance” actions the president issued in May to license 10 new reactors by 2030—is raising transparency concerns and safety fears by mandating that all nuclear energy rulemaking be conducted by a newly created White House office.

Nieh countered that Trump’s executive order reforms procedures and policies to “parse out portions of the licensing review that really didn’t relate to nuclear safety” and install “the right type of licensing frameworks to accelerate the safe deployment of nuclear technology.”

He said the order has already moved the commission “many, many steps forward” in galvanizing “near-term deployment of safe nuclear technologies” by authorizing demonstration projects such as the Reactor Pilot Program, which will award funding for 10 “first-mover” companies if their innovations achieve “criticality”—scalable potential for commercial viability—by July 4, 2026.



“In my view, the executive order was a significant catalyst,” Nieh said.

Overlooked amid the partisan hubbub, he said, is that the 50-year-old agency’s procedures and practices need to be updated. He called the commission “very rigid“ and ”not risk-informed” and said the agency is institutionally, systemically committed to holding onto the way it has always done things.

U.S. Nuclear Industry Council Chair Jeffrey Merrifield, a former two-term commissioner appointed in 1998 by President Bill Clinton, agreed.

“One editorial comment I can make as a former commissioner is there was probably some folks at the agency who were long past their ... utility,” Merrifield, the moderator of the panel, said.

‘A New NRC’

Nieh said he’s excited about the renewed sense of purpose animating his colleagues that he has observed since he returned to the agency as a commissioner in December and assumed its leadership in January.

“There is a new NRC,” he said. “It is so different than what I saw when I was director of [nuclear reactor regulation] just five years ago. It is just incredible.”

Three things remain the same at the commission, while three things are different since Trump returned to office, Nieh said.

The agency’s focus on safety and security “has not changed, and it will not change,” he said.

The commission remains independent yet still part of the federal government, he said, and it follows “the general policies and practices set by the administration,” as the commission always has.

“The other thing that’s the same is the quality of the workforce,“ Nieh said. ”The dedication I’ve seen throughout my career at the NRC and the dedication I see today is just incredible.”

The three things that are different include that many of the agency’s staff leaders “are new to these very senior roles,” bringing different ideas, skills, and experiences and applying them to get things done, he said.

That has fostered greater engagement and integration with other federal agencies and industry, Nieh said.

“It used to be NRC was just kind of a small agency outside ‘The Beltway’ doing nuclear issues—and that’s what we always did,” he said.

“Now, it’s obviously very different. NRC is working with its other partners within the federal government, and this is more visible, both internally and externally—a level of alignment with a senior leadership team than I’ve ever seen before. And that is awesome.”

Nieh said perhaps the most distinctive difference over the past year is the agency’s shift from being a regulator to being an enabler in advancing nuclear energy by working with developers to get innovations to commercial viability.

“The concept of enabling—I’ve been thinking a lot about what that really means, and what it means to me is evolving the NRC’s regulatory landscapes to address the operational needs and the actual risks that exist today, as opposed to leaving things the way they are,” he said.

Nieh said the commission must “anticipate future licensing and energy needs of the country” and “eliminate unnecessary administrative requirements that don’t enhance safety” that often result in “leaving long-standing interim work-arounds in place.”

The mindset at the agency is now that of an enabler, he said.

“You can actually feel it when you talk to the leaders and the staff,“ he said. ”It is not about just lowering standards for the sake of lowering standards. It’s not about compromising the NRC safety mission. It’s not about cutting corners or rushing the work.”

It’s about meeting the moment in quadrupling the electricity now generated by the nation’s 94 utility-scale nuclear reactors for the grid by 2050, Nieh said.

He said he’s grateful that the commission’s pace is quickening, and he noted that he’s voted on six different rule changes in just two months.

“I kind of use the analogy of, you know, when you flew here, you had to put your seatbelt on when you took off because you might get some turbulence on the way up. I think that’s what’s happened,” he said.

“I don’t see that level of turbulence right now. Is it completely smooth? No. But I feel OK with turning off the ‘fasten seatbelt’ sign and moving forward.”

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