RELEASE: Breakthrough Institute Statement on the Resignation of NRC Commissioner Annie Caputo

WASHINGTON, DC, July 29, 2025 – Annie Caputo, a commissioner on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, announced her resignation today. Her resignation is effective upon the swearing in of fellow commissioner David Wright, a year before her term was scheduled to end in June of 2026.

Caputo’s departure is a loss for the NRC and a setback for efforts to reform the agency and assure expeditious licensing of innovative advanced nuclear technology. She has been a clear voice for change at the NRC, willing to challenge the status quo in ways that her colleagues have not. Her votes were substantive and generally forward-looking, prioritizing how regulations should be designed to enable innovation. Most notably, she advocated for clear performance metrics at the NRC in an effort to find areas for improvement and track progress. With Caputo’s departure, it is much less likely that staff will be asked direct questions in hearings about unresolved issues.

There are now two open seats in the five-member Commission. President Trump removed Christopher T. Hanson from his commissioner role on June 13th, 2025. Caputo, a Republican, was nominated by President Trump in 2017 and then re-nominated for a second term by President Biden in 2022. It is unclear when two more commissioners will be nominated to fill the empty seats in the Commission. Our analysis of the vote records shows that a full five-member Commission is statistically almost twice as efficient as a three-member Commission.

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Media Contact:

Adam Stein

Director, Nuclear Energy Innovation

adam@thebreakthrough.org