nuclear-news

Did Trump Just Create a Political Slush Fund With Taxpayer Money?

May 21, 2026 , ScheerPost Staff

What began as a lawsuit over leaked tax returns is now morphing into something far bigger — and far more dangerous. In this chilling breakdown, the so-called $1.776 billion “1776 Fund” is exposed not as a normal legal settlement, but as a potentially unprecedented expansion of executive power dressed up in patriotic branding and constitutional smoke screens. Using a lawsuit that many legal experts considered weak from the start, the Trump administration has created a massive compensation fund administered by political appointees and aimed at people claiming they were victims of “government weaponization” — including figures tied to January 6.

But beneath the red-white-and-blue symbolism lies a far deeper question: can a president effectively sue his own government, settle with himself, and then redirect billions in public funds toward a political constituency without Congress? This analysis tears apart the legal architecture behind the arrangement, exposing how the lines between settlement, appropriation, and political patronage may be collapsing in real time. Whether courts intervene or not, one thing is already clear: another constitutional guardrail may have just been smashed in plain sight.

Transcript. The $1.776 Billion Question

Something happened this week that deserves a closer look — because the legal and constitutional structure behind it is unlike anything we’ve really seen before.

On Monday, the Department of Justice announced the creation of a $1.776 billion fund. The fund was created through the settlement of a lawsuit filed by Donald Trump against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns in 2019. Trump originally sought $10 billion in damages. Under the settlement, Trump receives no money directly. Instead, the money goes into a fund administered by a five-member commission appointed by the Attorney General — who, of course, serves under Trump.

The stated purpose of the fund is to compensate people who claim they were victims of what the administration calls “government weaponization.”

Now pause there for a second.

Because once you start looking at the structure of this arrangement the way a constitutional lawyer would, the questions become impossible to ignore.

The President of the United States sued an agency that reports to the President of the United States.

The IRS operates under the Treasury Department. The Treasury Secretary serves at the pleasure of the president. The Department of Justice defended the IRS in court. The Attorney General also serves at the pleasure of the president.

So Trump was effectively suing his own executive branch.

The judge overseeing the case noticed the problem immediately. She openly questioned how a legitimate adversarial settlement could exist when both sides ultimately answered to the same authority. In her words, the president appeared to be “negotiating with himself.”

That matters because settlements in American law are supposed to emerge from opposing interests. That adversarial structure is the entire foundation of how courts evaluate fairness and legitimacy.

But here, that structure barely existed.

And then there’s the lawsuit itself.

The leak of Trump’s tax returns happened between 2018 and 2020. The leaker, IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn, was prosecuted, pleaded guilty, and sentenced to prison. Legal experts widely questioned whether the federal government could even be held liable for damages caused by a contractor acting criminally outside his authority.

There were also major statute of limitations issues.

In other words: the case itself appeared weak.

Yet somehow it produced a $1.776 billion settlement…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Part 2 The 1776 Immunity Scheme

What began as a supposedly simple $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” settlement is now revealing itself as something far more dangerous — an unprecedented attempt to shield Donald Trump, his family, and his sprawling business empire from future federal scrutiny. Newly released settlement documents suggest the deal goes far beyond symbolic politics or compensation funds. Buried inside the legal language is what critics are calling a procedural blueprint for “practical immunity” — an effort to use administrative settlement powers to create protections that resemble a pardon without actually invoking the constitutional pardon process.

The implications stretch well beyond Trump himself. According to the analysis, the settlement attempts to extend protections across multiple federal agencies, family members, trusts, subsidiaries, and affiliated companies — creating what amounts to a new legal pathway for politically connected networks to escape accountability through executive power and settlement mechanics. Whether courts ultimately uphold or narrow these protections remains uncertain. But the precedent may already be set: a sitting administration testing how far executive authority can stretch before the constitutional guardrails finally snap.

The $1.776 Billion Question, Part Two: What the Settlement Document Actually Says

Edited Transcript:

I want to come back to the settlement I analyzed earlier when I produced the first piece on the anti-weaponization fund…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… https://scheerpost.com/2026/05/21/did-trump-just-create-a-political-slush-fund-with-taxpayer-money/

May 24, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Legal, USA | Leave a comment

Mirrors of Greed: Elon Musk, OpenAI and the Tech Brat Battle

19 May 2026 Dr Binoy Kampmark , https://theaimn.net/mirrors-of-greed-elon-musk-openai-and-the-tech-brat-battle/

They are a disagreeable bunch, with disagreeable ideas to match. The querulous brats behind the drive for technological servility and plugged in stupidity were always going to scrap over which dystopian vision they most prefer. Elon Musk thought he was onto something hounding OpenAI and its current CEO Sam Altman for supposedly betraying one of those visions. In his $150 billion legal action, Musk alleged that Altman and OpenAI president Greg Brockman deceived him into investing in the company in its initial stages when salad green altruism was modish and humanity mattered. The litigation was a prong in a broader strategy to unseat Altman from OpenAI, sabotage the company’s $852 billion restructuring into a public benefit corporation and direct $134 billion to OpenAI’s non-profit foundation.

The deception centred on maintaining OpenAI as a non-profit entity and pursuing artificial intelligence (AI) ventures in ways beneficial to humanity. (When the tech brats have a stab at humour, they go in hard.) According to Musk, OpenAI had effectively stolen a charity. (Between 2015 and 2017, he had personally put $44 million into OpenAI, funds, he argues, that were essentially misappropriated when the company sloughed its non-profit skin.) In an introductory overview of the company from December 2015, the company badges itself a “non-profit artificial intelligence research company” with the object of advancing “digital intelligence in a way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return. Since our research is free from financial obligations, we can better focus on a positive human impact.”

How things change. On May 18, a mere two hours was needed for a nine-jury member in Oakland, California to unanimously find against Musk, basing their decision on that most technical of grounds: the statute of limitations. This left two civil claims – breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment – untested. Having left OpenAI’s board in 2018, Musk dithered till February 2024 to file suit. Musk claimed to have only discovered the company’s abandonment of its non-profit mission in 2022, when Microsoft showed its interest with an investment of $10 billion. OpenAI’s legal team argued that the pertinent events – the creation of a for-profit subsidiary in 2019 for instance and Microsoft’s initial injection of $1 billion that same year, were already matters of common knowledge. Time on the statute of limitations was running well before 2022. US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the Northern District of California saw no reason to question the jury’s conclusion. “There’s substantial amount of evidence to support the jury’s finding, which is why I was prepared to dismiss on the spot.”

The trial was impressively ugly and amounted to an insult to the stout intelligence of the public whose welfare both parties claim to be protecting. The legal representatives from both sides jousted over respective views on AI and the credibility of the disputants. Musk’s lawyer, Steven Molo, pressed jurors to consider that several witnesses, including former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, doubted Altman’s candour, going so far as to find him mendacious. Altman had also conceded under cross-examination that he “told the occasional lie”. “Sam Altman’s credibility is directly at issue,” Molo crowed. “If you don’t believe him, they cannot win.”

OpenAI, Musk accusingly asserted, had wrongfully attempted to enrich investors and insiders at the expense of the non-profit. Along the way, it had failed to make AI safety a matter central to its operations. Microsoft, he further argued, had always known that OpenAI cared more about money than altruism. A personal journal entry penned by Brockman in November 2017 was also instructive, baldly revealing that OpenAI could not assert fidelity to its non-profit status if it intended becoming a benefit corporation months later. So it came to pass that Altman, Brockman and OpenAI were accused of the very same temptations, frailties and indifference to safety that could be found in Musk’s own conduct.

On the issue of safety and welfare, Musk’s own xAI, acquired by space and rocket company SpaceX, also part of the South African’s fiefdom of misrule, has drawn the attention of the European Commission and UK watchdog Ofcom over Grok, a product that has been used to create sexualised images. The combine arising from xAI and SpaceX could lead to an initial public offering that would surpass OpenAI in size, which sinks the scurrilous suggestion of altruism. Provided things go smoothly, the world’s first trillionaire might arise.

OpenAI was hardly going to leave Musk’s feeling of tech purity unchallenged. It was he, not OpenAI, who saw the shimmering dollar signs. Going back to 2017, he had floated the idea of a for-profit subsidiary with one caveat: he would have exclusive control. Failing this, he left the board in a huff. OpenAI’s attorney William Savitt suggested that Musk, having failed to “get his way at OpenAI,” filed his lawsuit only after establishing his own competing AI company in 2023. But most saliently, he waited too long to claim breaches of the founding agreement regarding the building of safe artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity. “Mr Musk may have the Midas touch in some areas, but not in AI,” claimed Savitt.

OpenAI’s predatory reflexes will be boosted by the decision. The non-profit status in this field has been found wanting, and the scramble for profits given much encouragement in this most unprincipled of frontiers. “The decision is likely to reassure investors and the broader AI sector,” opines Sarah Kreps of the Tech Policy Institute at Cornell University, “because it avoids a potentially chaotic outcome that could have challenged OpenAI’s commercial structure, Microsoft partnership, and future fund-raising plans.”

This was by no means the first time Musk had taken to throwing a brief of anger against OpenAI. In March 2024, showing that intelligence can be authentically artificial, he filed a lawsuit citing a contract violation of a contract that did not exist.  Using the misguided legal offices of Irell & Manella – the same firm that erroneously claimed on behalf of PETA that a monkey could hold copyright – Musk pursued what Techdirt’s Mike Masnick appropriately called a “vibes based” action. “Elon doesn’t have a contract with OpenAI which the company could have breached. And that’s kinda a problem in a breach of contract lawsuit.” This insuperable logic led Musk to abandon the lawsuit in June that year.

For Musk, the wells of indignation run deep. This is a man in the habit of losing or settling claims, be it with former Twitter executives and employees of the social platform now known as X, losing to investors in that same company for misleading public statements made during his untidy, often chaotic takeover, or having his lawsuit promptly dismissed against advertisers that exited that troubled platform. While such behaviour should draw scorn, those drawing benefit from his litigious pathologies – lawyers, in the main – can only be grateful. “In a lot of ways, he is just another businessperson asserting his rights,” says a credulous Shubha Ghosh, lawyer and law academic at Syracuse University. “I don’t think he’s abusing the legal system. Whether he uses it effectively, I’m not sure.” Wrong, certainly, on the first count.

May 21, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Legal, USA | Leave a comment

‘Effort to Stifle and Intimidate’: Trump DOJ Subpoenas News Outlets Over Iran War Coverage

Trump has said media outlets who circulate what he baselessly calls “false information” should be charged with treason.

By Jake Johnson , CommonDreams, May 12, 2026, https://www.commondreams.org/news/effort-to-stifle-and-intimidate-trump-doj-subpoenas-news-outlets-over-iran-war-coverage

“The government’s subpoenas to The Wall Street Journal and our reporters represent an attack on constitutionally protected newsgathering,” said the newspaper’s publisher.

The US Justice Department has reportedly subpoenaed The Wall Street Journal and other news outlets at the urging of President Donald Trump, who has complained incessantly about coverage of his illegal and disastrous Iran war.

The Journal reported Monday that it received grand jury subpoenas dated March 4 for records of its journalists as Trump pushed the Justice Department—now led by his former personal attorney, Todd Blanche—to investigate war-related leaks. “Blanche vowed to secure subpoenas specifically targeting the records of reporters who have worked on sensitive national security stories,” the Journal reported, citing an unnamed administration official.

During one meeting, the Journal reported, “Trump passed a stack of news articles he and other senior officials thought threatened national security to Blanche with a sticky note on it that said ‘treason.’”

Trump and other top administration officials, including Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth, have publicly voiced outrage over the US media’s Iran war coverage and threatened reporters who publish classified information—a common journalistic practice.

In April, Trump said he would work to imprison journalists involved in reporting on a US fighter jet shot down in Iran and subsequent efforts to rescue the warplane’s crew. The previous month, Trump floated “charges for treason” against journalists he accused of circulating “false information” about the Iran war.

Ashok Sinha, the chief communications officer of Dow Jones, the Journal’s publisher, said in a statement that “the government’s subpoenas to The Wall Street Journal and our reporters represent an attack on constitutionally protected newsgathering.”

“We will vigorously oppose this effort to stifle and intimidate essential reporting,” said Sinha.

The subpoena targeting Journal reporters pertained to “a February 23 article that reported that Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and others at the Pentagon warned the president about the risks of an extended military campaign against Iran,” the newspaper reported Monday.

“Other news outlets, including Axios and the Washington Post, published similar stories that day,” the Journal added. “Trump launched the war five days later, on February 28.”

CNN reported Monday that “in addition to The Journal, other news outlets have also received subpoenas in recent months.”

“But some of the news organizations have chosen not to comment on the matter for the time being,” CNN added.

Scott Stedman, an investigative journalist with The Newsground, accused the leaders of targeted outlets of “cowardice” for not speaking out against the Trump administration’s brazen assault on press freedom.

“The president uses the DOJ to target your news organization with subpoenas because he wants to out your sources and you don’t even have the guts to say anything,” Stedman wrote. “Grow a fucking spine!”

May 14, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Legal, USA | Leave a comment

Are Trump’s nuclear plans illegal?

“Fifty years ago, the Atomic Energy Commission was abolished because they became too much of a promoter and lost the confidence of Congress and the public over safety,” said Paul Gunter, director of the reactor oversight project at Beyond Nuclear. “The NRC was established to provide a regulator that prioritizes safety and is obligated not to take shortcuts for a production agenda. Instead, half a century later, we are on the same dangerous collision course, casting aside the NRC in favor of the DOE, which doesn’t have the experience or the staff to get the industry in line with safety and security. This capitulation to the Trump agenda could lead to the NRC being abolished altogether, because nobody will have confidence in them.”

May 11, 2026, https://beyondnuclear.org/are-trumps-nuclear-plans-illegal/

13 organizations, including Beyond Nuclear and Nuclear Information & Resource Service, have filed comments to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, suggesting Trump’s nuclear “orders” may violate long-standing legislation

The so-called “Rubber-Stamp Rule”, an effort by the Trump administration to “Make America Nuclear Again”, violates key components of the Atomic Energy Act (AEA) and Energy Reorganization Act, according to comments filed this week by 13 organizations including the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) and Beyond Nuclear. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) proposed rule will allow reactor designs that the Department of Energy (DOE) and Department of Defense (DOD) have approved to bypass required safety reviews by the NRC. 

In a separate comment filing in March, 11 state attorneys general concurred with the organizations’ findings that the Department of Energy ‘s new policy to exclude “pilot reactors” from both NRC licensing and environmental reviews violates existing law. In that case, the Department of Energy announced, in violation of federal law, that it would exempt previously untested reactors that it approves to be built and operated from any review of their environmental impacts.

“Along with the DOE’s environmental ‘free pass’ policy, the whole ‘expedited licensing’ regime the administration is attempting to set up appears to be illegal,” said Tim Judson, executive director of NIRS and co-author of comments filed to the NRC. “The White House is trying to create a ‘regulatory tunnel’ around NRC’s safety regulations. That would mean DOE’s biases and obviously false assumptions about the safety of nuclear power plants become the new normal, exposing the public to unacceptable dangers to our health and safety.”  

The NRC’s proposed regulation would allow companies that want to build a nuclear reactor of the same design as one DOE has previously approved to merely submit documentation of that approval and claim that the previously built reactor “is safe.” Such companies would likely never have to go through a detailed safety review by NRC to build and operate such reactors. In 1974, Congress amended the Atomic Energy Act to prohibit such a scheme.

“Fifty years ago, the Atomic Energy Commission was abolished because they became too much of a promoter and lost the confidence of Congress and the public over safety,” said Paul Gunter, director of the reactor oversight project at Beyond Nuclear. “The NRC was established to provide a regulator that prioritizes safety and is obligated not to take shortcuts for a production agenda. Instead, half a century later, we are on the same dangerous collision course, casting aside the NRC in favor of the DOE, which doesn’t have the experience or the staff to get the industry in line with safety and security. This capitulation to the Trump agenda could lead to the NRC being abolished altogether, because nobody will have confidence in them.”

The groups also told NRC that it cannot simply “rubber-stamp” reactors that the military builds, either. “And while the law allows the DOD to build its own nuclear reactors,” said Tim Judson of NIRS, “it does not allow the NRC to skip safety reviews for civilian nuclear plants just because they use the same designs. The military routinely exposes its personnel to dangers that civilians are supposed to be protected from.”

“In its eagerness to short-circuit reactor safeguards, the Trump administration is once again doing what it does best – demonstrating a complete disregard for the law,” said Linda Pentz Gunter, executive director of Beyond Nuclear. “But nuclear technology is too inherently dangerous to operate as an outlaw. Ignoring those dangers will put millions of Americans at risk of another catastrophic nuclear accident.”

• NIRS, BN, et al comments on NRC Proposed Rule —  https://www.nirs.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/DocketID_NRC-2025-1503_Comments_-BeyondNuclear-NIRS-etal.pdf 
• Comments on DOE Categorical Exclusion Policy — https://www.nirs.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/2026.03.04-NIRS-et-al-Comments-re-DOE-categorical-exclusion-for-advanced-nuclear-reactors.pdf

Download the press release

May 13, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Legal, USA | Leave a comment

Plaintiffs Tour the Savannah River Site’s Plutonium “Pit” Bomb Core Plant -Most Expensive Building in U.S. History is Key to New Nuclear Arms Race

Tom Clements, Director, SRS Watch, Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch NM, Shelby Cohen, Comms Manager, SC Env. Law Project, 23 April 26, https://nukewatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Plaintiffs-Tour-the-Savannah-River-Sites-Plutonium-Pit-Bomb-Core-Plant.pdf

Columbia, SC – On April 21, plaintiffs Savannah River Site Watch, Nuclear Watch New Mexico and Tri-Valley CAREs toured the plutonium “pit” bomb core production plant at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA’s) Savannah River Site (SRS) near Aiken, South Carolina. They were accompanied by their attorney from the South Carolina Environmental Law Project and a science consultant from the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Plutonium pits are the core components of all U.S. nuclear weapons. The NNSA is seeking to expand production to at least 30 plutonium pits per year at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico and at least 50 pits per year at SRS, which has never previously produced pits. NNSA pushed forward with the project without required public review, in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

Plaintiffs sued in federal court in Columbia, SC and won, requiring the NNSA to complete a nationwide programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS), with public hearings to be held this May (listed below). The court-approved settlement agreement also required an inspection of the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility by plaintiffs to ensure that no production begins before the completion of the final PEIS and simultaneous Record of Decision, which NNSA now says is expected in early 2027. NNSA officials also informed plaintiffs that 90% design and “rebaselined” costs will not be completed until September 2026, which means that once again Congress will be appropriating taxpayers’ money without knowing full costs.

The SRS pit plant will be the most expensive buildings ever built in the USA, with a current NNSA estimate of up to $30 billion even before all total costs are known (includes at least $5 billion in sunk costs for SRS’ failed MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility being “repurposed” to pit production). The agency’s recent budget request for FY 2027 (pp 17-19) reveals an 87% jump in combined pit production funding for LANL and SRS, averaging $5 billion for each of the next six years.

Despite the staggering costs, the independent Government Accountability Office (GAO) has repeatedly found that NNSA has no credible cost estimates. In fact, the NNSA and its parent Department of Energy (DOE) have been on the GAO’s High Risk List for project mismanagement and waste of taxpayers’ dollars since 1991. In August 2025 the DOE Deputy Secretary ordered a “special assessment” of the troubled program completed by mid-December. Despite repeated Freedom of Information Act and congressional requests, DOE has yet to publicly release it. Finally, NNSA’s FY 2025 Performance Evaluation Report for SRS specifically notes that the managing contractor underperformed in project execution of the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility, likely adding yet more delays and costs.

NNSA released the Draft Pit Production PEIS on April 10, 2026. It declares that:

“NNSA missions are conducted fully consistent with current treaty obligations. The SSMP [Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan] is fully consistent with and supports the U.S. commitment to the NPT [NonProliferation Treaty].” (Volume I, p. 1-5)

Article VI of the U.S. constitution enshrines international treaties as the “supreme Law of the Land.” The 1970 NonProliferation Treaty required the nuclear weapons powers to “to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament…” After more than a half-century that has never even begun. The next NPT Review Conference, held every five years, is scheduled to begin April 27 at the United Nations. It is widely expected to fail for the third time over fifteen years to make any progress whatsoever toward nuclear disarmament. To the contrary, expanded plutonium pit production is key to the U.S.’ $2 trillion “modernization” program to keep nuclear weapons forever.

The draft PEIS also declares:

“Over time, the materials that make up the pit change in ways that reduce the pit’s functionality… Building the manufacturing capacity to produce at least 80 ppy [pits per year] before the end of the decade is essential to maintaining a reliable nuclear deterrence. Many of the aging pits will have to be replaced with new ones in the coming years to maintain a safe and reliable nuclear stockpile and deterrence.” (Volume I, p. 1-3.)

NNSA completely omits that in 2006 independent experts concluded that plutonium pits have reliable lifetimes of at least 85 to 100 years, with no stated expiration date (the average age of pits is now around 43 years). Despite congressional directives, NNSA has yet to release a fully updated pit life study since then. In fact, no future pit production is scheduled to maintain the safety and reliability of the existing stockpile. Instead it is all for new-design nuclear weapons that could prompt a return to testing.

Tom Clements, SRS Watch Director, commented:

NNSA completely omits that in 2006 independent experts concluded that plutonium pits have reliable lifetimes of at least 85 to 100 years, with no stated expiration date (the average age of pits is now around 43 years). Despite congressional directives, NNSA has yet to release a fully updated pit life study since then. In fact, no future pit production is scheduled to maintain the safety and reliability of the existing stockpile. Instead it is all for new-design nuclear weapons that could prompt a return to testing.

Tom Clements, SRS Watch Director, commented:

“This PEIS process, pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act, gives the public the power to be engaged in democratic decision-making processes and voice their concerns on nuclear weapons projects – ones that historically have been cloaked in secrecy. This particular public comment period is crucial. Because of the current administration’s dismantling of NEPA regulations, this could be the last nuclear weapons project that the public has the opportunity to adequately scrutinize.” 

Dylan Spaulding, a physicist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, observed:

“The scope and pace of pit production are frequently justified due to concerns about plutonium aging, but pits in the existing stockpile should not require replacement for decades. Newly produced pits are to furnish new types of weapons, not to maintain the ones we have. Plutonium aging is simply not a credible motivation for a rushed pit production program at this time.”

Jay Coghlan, Director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, commented:

“It’s ironic that plutonium pit production’s exorbitant costs could lower national security instead of enhancing it. New untested designs could lower confidence in the existing, tested stockpile. Or these new-designs could prompt the U.S. to return to testing, after which other nuclear weapons powers would surely follow. It’s time to end the cover up of the NNSA’s deeply troubled pit production program and to expose everything from its runaway costs to its role in a new nuclear arms race that endangers us all.”

In closing, Attorney Ben Cunningham, commented:

“South Carolina Environmental Law Project lawyers fought for years in federal court to win this programmatic environmental impact statement – a significant victory for public participation and transparency. Now, South Carolinians have a voice in this legally required environmental and public safety review that the federal agency must take into account before deciding whether our state is used to produce nuclear weapon components along with their inevitable radioactive wastes. If you care about the future of our land, water and safety, please submit your comments on the programmatic environmental impact statement before the July 16 deadline.”

The Draft PEIS was released by NNSA on April 10, 2026 with a 90-day public comment period. Comments can be submitted by email to PitPEIS@nnsa.doe.gov until July 16. Please include the document number “DOE/EIS-0573” in the subject line. For more please see https://www.energy.gov/nepa/articles/doeeis-0573-draft-environmental-impact-statement-april-2026

Five required public hearings:

All hearings with the exception of the Washington, DC, hearing are scheduled for 5:00-5:30pm Open House Poster Session, 5:30-8:00pm Formal Public Hearing, in their respective time zones.

North Augusta, South Carolina: Tuesday, May 5, 2026, North Augusta Community Center, 495 Brookside Dr, North Augusta, SC 29841, Virtual: https://bit.ly/PitPEIS5May, Meeting ID: 267 103 716 263 892, Passcode: Wb2RJ9zA, Join by Phone: 571-429-4592, Phone conference ID: 297 381 326#

Kansas City, Missouri: Thursday, May 7, 2026, Hillcrest Community Center, Community Room, 10401 Hillcrest Road, Kansas City, MO 64134, No virtual meeting option.

Livermore, California: Tuesday, May 12, 2026, Garré Vineyard & Winery, Santa Rosa Room, 7986 Tesla Road, Livermore, CA 9455, no virtual meeting option.

Santa Fe, New Mexico: Thursday, May 14, 2026, Santa Fe Farmers Market Institute, 1607 Paseo de Peralta, Santa Fe, NM 87501, Virtual: https://bit.ly/PitPEIS14May, Meeting ID: 278 752 885 654 34, Passcode: W9Bt96vN, Join by Phone: 719-283-1404, Phone conference ID: 311 183 140#

Washington, DC: Wednesday, May 20, 2026, 2:00-2:30pm Open House Poster Session, 2:30-5:00pm Formal Public Hearing, Eastern Standard Time, Southwest Library, Large Meeting Room, 900 Wesley Pl, SW, Washington, DC 20024, no virtual meeting option.

April 25, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Legal, USA | Leave a comment

NuScale’s ENTRA1 “Veterans” Had Zero Nuclear Projects — Investors Lost 70%: Levi & Korsinsky, LLP

Promise vs. Reality: The NuScale Power ENTRA1 Partnership Performance Gap

March 30, 2026 Source: Levi & Korsinsky, LLP

NEW YORK, March 30, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — “Companies that make specific promises to investors about future performance have an obligation to disclose known risks to those projections. The contrast between what NuScale told the market about ENTRA1 and what analysts independently confirmed raises substantial questions about the accuracy of those representations,” stated Joseph E. Levi, Esq., managing partner of Levi & Korsinsky, LLP.

A securities class action has been filed on behalf of purchasers of NuScale Power Corporation (NYSE: SMR) stock between May 13, 2025 and November 6, 2025. …..

NuScale shares fell from a Class Period high above $57 to just $17, a decline exceeding 70%, after the gap between defendants’ representations and reality came to light. The lead plaintiff deadline is April 20, 2026.

The Promise

Throughout the Class Period, the Company portrayed ENTRA1 Energy LLC as a formidable commercialization engine for its small modular reactor technology. Official press materials and SEC filings described ENTRA1 as:

• An “independent global energy production platform”
• A “one-stop-shop” and “single hub” for financing, development, execution, and management of nuclear power plants
• An entity “led by an executive team of energy, infrastructure, and finance sector veterans”
• A partner with “experience in delivering large-scale power infrastructure”
• A “developer” of power plants that would “own and operate” energy facilities
• An entity whose experience was “exactly what is required” to commercialize NuScale’s reactors

The Reality

After NuScale disclosed a $495 million payment to ENTRA1 and analysts pressed for details on the November 6, 2025 earnings call, a starkly different picture emerged, the lawsuit contends:

• ENTRA1 had never built, financed, or operated any significant project during its entire operating history
• Independent analyst research identified just 3 employees and 1 investor at ENTRA1
• The “experience” defendants referenced belonged to principals of a separate entity, not ENTRA1 itself
• ENTRA1 would not actually build power plants but instead “coordinate projects” and “bring in partners”
• Guggenheim Securities described ENTRA1 as “a 3-year old company that has never built, financed or operated anything”
• ENTRA1 appeared to be organized primarily to support a single individual

The Numbers: Promised vs. Actual

What Was Promised | What Was Revealed

• “Independent global energy production platform” | Entity with 3 employees, no completed projects
• “Experience in delivering large-scale power infrastructure” | Experience belonged to principals of a different entity
• ENTRA1 “develops, finances, owns and operates” plants | ENTRA1 would “coordinate projects” and “bring in partners”
• 
  A “differentiator” justifying exclusive global rights | Analysts found “no information regarding the company’s history, management team, size or capitalization”
• $35M-$55M per NPM contribution payments to a proven partner | $495 million paid to an untested entity, with potential obligations exceeding $3 billion

What the Lawsuit Alleges About the Gap

The action asserts that defendants knew or recklessly disregarded that their representations about ENTRA1 were materially false and misleading. By attributing the experience of a separate entity’s principals to ENTRA1 itself, and by describing ENTRA1 as a developer and operator when it lacked any track record, defendants allegedly created an artificial perception of commercialization readiness that inflated NuScale’s stock price……………………………………………………………….. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/03/30/3264986/0/en/NuScale-s-ENTRA1-Veterans-Had-Zero-Nuclear-Projects-Investors-Lost-70-Levi-Korsinsky-LLP.html

April 7, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Legal, USA | Leave a comment