Allowing Foreign Ownership of Nuclear Generation Is a Net Positive

The Breakthrough Institute is engaging extensively as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) implements its ongoing wholesale revision of its regulatory framework following Executive Order 14300. The rule on exceptions from foreign ownership, control, or domination (FOCD) is part of that broader effort, implementing a key provision of the ADVANCE Act.

The FOCD framework has historically been operationalized as a near-categorical bar against majority foreign ownership, and that posture has constrained foreign investment in the U.S. nuclear sector. When the Atomic Energy Act was first passed in 1947, security was paramount, as no other nation had yet tested nuclear weapons. The 1954 amendments included commercial operation of nuclear power, but with significant controls on foreign ownership and export. The ADVANCE Act has now brought this discussion into the 21st century.

BTI's comment supports the rule both as a faithful implementation of Congressional intent and on its substantive merits. The rule implements Section 301 of the ADVANCE Act by exempting 37 OECD member countries and India from the FOCD prohibition for utilization facility licenses (previously limited to minority stakes).

The practical weight of the rule now lands on the inimicality determination (assessing whether foreign ownership poses a threat to the safety and security of the United States). With the FOCD bar effectively lifted, that determination becomes the national-security screen for foreign applicants. The difficulty is that the inimicality review has never had a published methodology: how the NRC weighs an applicant's country of origin, what evidentiary standards apply, which factors are important, and how interagency input is incorporated are not apparent on the public record, and the closest-adjacent guidance has remained in draft for a decade. The NRC should update its 2016 draft FOCD Standard Review Plan and Regulatory Guide with explicit treatment of the inimicality methodology. Further, that update should account for 123 Agreement status, the NRC's parallel Part 110 export rulemaking, and the Department of Energy's Part 810 framework, treating the inimicality review as one node in a multi-agency country-assessment architecture.

As the NRC implements the ADVANCE Act alongside its broader licensing modernization agenda, expanding permissible foreign participation, paired with clear and predictable guidance, will support the capacity the United States needs to meet its nuclear buildout commitments. Together, this helps make the domestic U.S. nuclear buildout a genuinely global effort.