nuclear-news

NRC buckles to White House and licenses dangerous TerraPower reactor

5 Mar 2026, , https://beyondnuclear.org/nrc-buckles-to-white-house-and-licenses-dangerous-terrapower-react

Nuclear Regulatory Commission license of dangerous new reactor risks lives

Beyond Nuclear decries NRC decision to put public safety aside and buckle to Trump orders to license a Gates reactor known as “Cowboy Chernobyl”

Last September, the then three sitting commissioners at the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission insisted during a Senate hearing they would put safety first when considering the approval of new reactor projects. 

Senators had raised fears that new executive orders issued by the White House last May that demanded fast-tracking new reactor projects, could jeopardize the commissioners’ judgement. The Senators also asked if the commissioners feared losing their jobs if they refused to license a reactor they viewed as dangerous. Two said they did.

“This week we learned that the now five members of the NRC commission are all too willing to capitulate to Trump’s rubber stamp orders, protect their jobs and sacrifice public safety in order to license a new reactor design that is known to be extremely dangerous,” said Paul Gunter, director of the reactor oversight project at Beyond Nuclear. The two new commissioners are nuclear industry insiders chosen by the White House.

Gunter’s remarks came after the NRC commissioners voted unanimously this week to grant a construction license to the Bill Gates company TerraPower’s 345-megawatt sodium-cooled small modular reactor, designated for a site in Kemmerer, Wyoming.

“It appears that the White House influence is working,” Gunter said. “But pressuring regulators to cut safety corners and fast-track a technology as inherently dangerous as nuclear power is gambling with the lives of thousands and possibly millions of people.”

Dr. Edwin Lyman, a physicist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, warned last December after NRC staff approved the TerraPower design, that the “fast” reactor, known as the Natrium, is deeply flawed and highly vulnerable to a serious accident.

“Make no mistake, this type of reactor has major safety flaws compared to conventional nuclear reactors.” Lyman said. “The potential for rapid power excursions and the lack of a real containment make the Kemmerer plant a true ‘Cowboy Chernobyl.’”

“The White House, through its executive orders and by exerting control over the NRC, has embarked on a dangerous dismantling of essential safety regulations,” Gunter said. 

The new reactor rush puts the US on a path to another nuclear disaster while wasting precious time and billions of taxpayer dollars better spent on implementing a rapid and widespread renewable energy program. This would  answer the country’s energy needs faster and without the extreme risks and ever soaring costs posed by nuclear power technology,” Gunter concluded.

March 9, 2026 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, USA