The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) aims to jumpstart the development and deployment of new advanced reactors this year by bypassing onerous and largely useless environmental assessments. In a May 2025 executive order, President Donald Trump directed the DOE to "utilize all available legal authorities to site, approve, and authorize the design, construction, and operation of privately funded advanced nuclear reactor technologies at Department of Energy-owned or controlled sites." Importantly, the agency was also instructed work on "establishing new categorical exclusions" with the "goal of operating an advanced nuclear reactor at the first site no later than 30 months from the date of this order."
Categorical exclusions mean that no National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) environmental impact statement or environmental assessment is required before a project may be approved. This saves a lot of time and bureaucratic effort since compiling an environmental impact statement takes nearly three years on average to complete.
