by Audrey Streb
The Daily Caller
The Trump administration has indicated a willingness to promote domestic nuclear energy production, though several industry experts say there are a number of obstacles that must be cleared first.
Immediately after returning to the White House, President Donald Trump signed an executive order on “unleashing American energy,” aiming to bolster domestic fossil fuel production, which the U.S. primarily relies on, and cut “undue burdens” on the nuclear energy sector. While the move signaled increased attention on the industry’s development, several policy experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation that many obstacles must be addressed before nuclear power can become a major source of energy in the U.S…
“I’m hoping that [Environmental Protection Agency] EPA will redo the radiation risk models,” Steve Milloy, a senior legal fellow at the Energy & Environment Legal Institute who also served on the Trump EPA transition team from 2016-2017, told the DCNF. “People are so scared of nuclear power and radiation. We haven’t seen any sickness … We have all this great technology that can’t be deployed because of fear of nuclear radiation.”
The most recent EPA radiation risk models are from 2011. Milloy argues that the models are too stringent and that until the “linear threshold models” are adjusted, there will be “no nuclear power in this country.”
