Public Policy

Holtec International employees with a nuclear fuel cask at the company's manufacturing facility in Pennsylvania.

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The Department of Energy’s Part 810 regulations, governing the export of peaceful nuclear energy technology, are long overdue for modernization. The rule lacks transparency, predictability and efficiency, and impedes our manufacturing and technology sectors from increasing exports and jobs. The rule is overly complicated and, in trying to protect too much, diminishes the ability of the United States to focus efforts on the most critical national security priorities.

In September 2011, the DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration proposed changes to the Part 810 regulations. The proposed rule fails to remedy the existing problems with Part 810, and it exacerbates those problems in several fundamental ways.

• Fact Sheet:  Key points on the Department of Energy’s proposed rule regulating commercial nuclear exports (Part 810)
• Summary of the nuclear industry’s concerns with the DOE proposed rule
• Comments of the Nuclear Energy Institute on DOE’s proposed rule, submitted to the U.S. Department of Energy December 7, 2011
• Report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS):  Nuclear Trade Controls:  Minding the Gaps, by Fred McGoldrick.  January 2013. 

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Congressional Concerns with the Part 810 proposed rule

• Letter of November 16, 2011, from Minority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-SC) and Reps. Judy Biggert (R-IL), Jason Altmire (D-PA), and Mike Simpson (R-ID) to Secretary of Energy Steven Chu expressing concern that the proposed rule unnecessarily restricts commerce and reduces U.S. competitiveness.
• Letter of December 9, 2011, from Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY), Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Energy and Power, to Secretary of Energy Steven Chu expressing concerns about the proposed rule's wide-ranging adverse consequences.
• Letter of March 26, 2013, from House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI), the committee's vice chairman and subcommittee chairmen to Secretary of Energy Steven Chu asking for information on how DOE implements export control laws, and the economic impacts of the Part 810 proposed rule.