NIA Public Comments
NIA submitted public comments on DOE’s Notice of New Categorical Exclusion and Request for Comment (DOE-HQ-2025-0405). NIA welcomes DOE’s commitment to advancing the deployment of advanced reactor technologies and recognizes the potential for categorical exclusions (CatEx) under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to conserve agency and applicant resources and reduce unnecessary delays for advanced reactors. However, for these changes to be durable, the application of CatEx for advanced reactors must be clearly justified by detailed information, bounding conditions, and sufficient empirical environmental review data.