OMB Approves NRC Sunset Rule Final Rule

On Friday the OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) announced that it had approved a direct final rule from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on “The Sunset Rule [NRC-2025-0479]”. The rule was submitted to OIRA on August 4^th, 2025.

According to the entry for this rulemaking in the Spring 2025 Unified Agenda:

“This rulemaking would amend covered NRC regulations to insert conditional sunset dates under Executive Order 14270 [link added], Zero-Based Regulatory Budgeting to Unleash American Energy. The EO directs the NRC to issue a sunset rule to the extent consistent with applicable law and provides an exemption from the EO for regulatory permitting regimes authorized by statute.”

The NRC rulemaking listing for this rule reports that this final rule will affect Parts “1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 19, 20, 21, 25, 26, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39, 40, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 60, 61, 62, 63, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 81, 95, 100, 110, 140, 150, 160, 170, 171” of 10 CFR Chapter 1.

I do not normally cover NRC regulations, and I do not expect to cover this rulemaking in any depth, but I do think that the scope of what this direct final rule will potentially affect is worth looking at. For example, the above list of affected sections covers the following facility security regulations:

Part 11 - Criteria And Procedures for Determining Eligibility for Access to or Control Over Special Nuclear Material,

Part 37 - Physical Protection of Category 1 and Category 2 Quantities of Radioactive Material,

Part 73 - Physical Protection of Plants and Materials.

This rulemaking will probably be published this week. Again, I will probably not cover this direct final rule in any detail, but I will announce its publication in the appropriate “Short Takes” post.