Sen. Capito Highlights Trump's Fast-Tracking Nuclear Permits
Announcement coincides with EPA proposal to repeal Biden-era carbon regulations.
WASHINGTON, June 17, 2025 – Faster avenues to nuclear power permits will accompany lightened carbon emissions regulations, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., the chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee said Thursday.
“The President said today he’s going to shorten the permitting time for nuclear,” Capito said in an interview with WTRF. “The licensing for small, modular reactors and advanced nuclear is so slow that you’re now looking into the 2030s before you’re ever going to see one of these things built.”
President Trump signed an executive order on May 23 granting the U.S. energy secretary authority to approve advanced reactor designs and projects, taking authority away from the independent safety agency that has regulated the U.S. nuclear industry for five decades.
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If the country intends to lead the world in artificial intelligence, Capito said, it needs more energy. Data center executives have agreed that reliable nuclear power remains at least two decades out due to permitting and infrastructure delays. The comments come amid record-high energy demand driven by AI and cloud computing, as well as warnings that 70% of U.S. transmission infrastructure could reach the end of its life within the next decade.
Capito said Biden-era emissions rules threaten U.S. power supply
Capito separately praised a proposal from the Environmental Protection Agency, unveiled Wednesday, to repeal carbon emission standards set by the Biden administration. The proposal would repeal rules limiting greenhouse gas emissions from power plants fueled by coal and natural gas.
The power plant rules are among about 30 environmental regulations that EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin targeted in March when he announced what he called the “most consequential day of deregulation in American history.”
Capito said the Biden-era regulations, if left intact, would result in the majority of the U.S.’s power plants shutting down, as current carbon capture technology is not advanced enough to meet the former administration’s requirements. Coal, natural gas and nuclear are the U.S.’s main sources of energy, with renewable sources contributing marginally.
Environmental and public health groups vow to challenge rules
Environmental and public health groups responded by calling the rollbacks dangerous and vowing to challenge the rules in court.
Dr. Lisa Patel, a pediatrician and executive director of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate & Health, called the proposals “yet another in a series of attacks” by the Trump administration on the nation’s “health, our children, our climate and the basic idea of clean air and water.”
She called it “unconscionable to think that our country would move backwards on something as common sense as protecting children from mercury and our planet from worsening hurricanes, wildfires, floods and poor air quality driven by climate change.”
“Ignoring the immense harm to public health from power plant pollution is a clear violation of the law,’' added Manish Bapna, president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council. “If EPA finalizes a slapdash effort to repeal those rules, we’ll see them in court.”
The EPA-targeted rules could prevent an estimated 30,000 deaths and save $275 billion each year they are in effect, according to an Associated Press examination that included the agency’s own prior assessments and a wide range of other research.
Even a partial dismantling of the rules would mean more pollutants such as smog, mercury and lead — and especially more tiny airborne particles that can lodge in lungs and cause health problems, the AP analysis found. It would also mean higher emissions of greenhouse gases, driving Earth’s warming to deadlier levels.
Matthew Daly of the Associated Press contributed to this report.
