Nuclear Regulatory Commission finalizes rule putting deadlines on contested licensing hearings

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Friday, Oct. 30, that it has finalized a rule setting schedules for contested hearings on reactor and other license applications. The agency said the new schedules aim to wrap up most cases in about a year and the simplest ones in roughly six months, compared with hearings that in the past often ran for years.¹ The commission had listed the final rule, titled "Streamlining Contested Adjudications in Licensing Proceedings," for an affirmation session on Oct. 30.²

The rule takes effect 30 days after it is published in the Federal Register, which the NRC said it expects next week. It will apply to contested hearing opportunities that open on or after that date.¹

What the rule does

• It creates three hearing tracks, called Standard, Focused and Expedited, assigned by the complexity of the application.
• Hearing notices must include a "Standard Hearing Completion Date" telling applicants and the public when the agency intends to finish.
• A hearing will get underway once a contention, the agency's term for a contested issue, is admitted, instead of waiting until NRC staff finish their technical review.
• The agency said the rule does not change the standards applicants must meet for a license or its duty to evaluate safety and security independently.¹

American Nuclear Society's Nuclear Newswire reported that Standard hearings must be completed within 18 months, Focused hearings within 12 months and Expedited hearings within six months. It quoted NRC General Counsel Matt Pociask as saying in a media call that "the contested hearing will never be the long pole in the tent" and reported that hearings on certain power uprates could be expedited.³

Legal basis

The NRC said the rule carries out direction from Congress in the 2024 ADVANCE Act and from Executive Order 14300.¹ That May 2025 order, "Ordering the Reform of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission," tells the agency to streamline its public hearings and to set fixed licensing deadlines, including no more than 18 months to decide on a new reactor and one year for continued operation of an existing one, according to the proposed rule.⁴

What changed from the proposal

The NRC proposed the rule on March 3 under docket NRC-2025-1501 and took comments through April 2. The proposal would have required partnerships, corporations and associations to be represented by an attorney, allowing only individuals to appear on their own behalf.⁴ Nuclear Newswire reported that the final rule drops that change after public input, and that it leaves the contention admissibility standard for members of the public as it was.³

What supporters and others said

"This rule preserves public participation while making the hearing process more efficient," NRC Chairman Ho K. Nieh said in the agency's announcement.¹

The Nuclear Innovation Alliance, a nonprofit that backs new nuclear energy, said in an April 1 comment that it backs a faster hearing process that still lets the public raise concerns. It asked the agency to keep deciding standing together with contention admissibility, rather than first, and to apply judicial standing rules rigorously.⁵ The Breakthrough Institute said in an April 17 article that it backs the agency's goal of speeding up contested cases and making their timing easier to anticipate, and urged the NRC to keep the attorney-only representation requirement for organizations.⁶

What the records do not show

• The text of the final rule, its Federal Register citation and the NRC's responses to public comments were not available to us; the agency's posted copy of the final rule could not be opened.
• The 18-, 12- and six-month limits for each track come from Nuclear Newswire's reporting; the NRC announcement describes the schedules only as about a year for most cases and roughly six months for the simplest.
• The agency's announcement does not report how individual commissioners voted on the rule or name any opponents of it.¹