The NRC has issued a Federal Register notice confirming the January 8, 2026 effective date of its direct final rule implementing the requirements of Executive Order 14270, Zero-Based Regulatory Budgeting to Unleash American Energy. The direct final rule sets conditional sunset dates for several identified NRC regulations, meaning those rules will automatically expire one year after the rule’s effective date (i.e., January 8, 2027).
The rule also inserts a new provision into 10 CFR 2.807, specifying the circumstances under which future regulations adopted by the NRC will include a conditional sunset date of no more than five years after the regulation’s effective date.
The NRC received significant adverse comments on the proposed amendment that would have sunsetted the aircraft impact assessment requirements in 10 CFR 50.150. In response, the Commission withdrew the amendment and will instead address the public comments on the proposal in a separate final rule to be issued at a later date.
While the NRC acknowledged that most of its regulations fall within its “regulatory permitting regimes authorized by statute” and therefore are beyond the scope of EO 14270, it identified certain regulations that could be sunsetted due to being outdated, seldom or never used, or duplicative of other regulations. Below we break down the key regulations affected.
10 CFR Part 2: Agency Rules of Practice and Procedure
10 CFR Part 2 contains the NRC’s rules of practice and procedure and governs how the Commission conducts adjudicatory proceedings. The NRC is sunsetting regulations in Subpart F—last used in the 1970s—which lays out procedures for a hearing and the issuance of a partial decision on site suitability matters where the applicant seeks early resolution.
The NRC is also sunsetting Subparts N and O of Part 2. These sections, put in place in 2004 as part of the most recent comprehensive overhaul of Part 2, provide for abbreviated adjudicatory hearings under certain circumstances provided that all parties agree to their use. These subparts have never been used.
10 CFR Part 26: Fitness for Duty Programs
Subpart F to Part 26, which governs licensee-operated drug and alcohol testing facilities, is being sunsetted as licensees now universally use US Department of Health and Human Services–certified laboratories instead of NRC-licensed facilities.
10 CFR Part 50: Domestic Licensing of Production and Utilization Facilities
Appendix Q to 10 CFR Part 50, which provides a nonbinding preapplication early site-suitability review in which NRC staff issue a preliminary site report before a license application is filed, is being sunsetted due to this mechanism having limited value today in light of the Part 52 early site permit process and normal preapplication engagement with the NRC.
Written Interpretations by the General Counsel
A number of substantively identical provisions scattered throughout the NRC’s rules, including the most frequently cited provision in 10 CFR 50.3, describe that no interpretation of the regulations is binding on the Commission unless issued in writing by the NRC’s General Counsel. These longstanding regulations are being sunsetted due to lack of statutory requirement, infrequent use, and questionable validity.
Occasionally the NRC’s General Counsel (and the Atomic Energy Commission’s before it) has received requests for “formal legal interpretation” (citing section 50.3 in particular); the provision has been exercised “sparingly, and only in instances involving major legal or policy questions.” Such questions generally arise in the context of specific facts and circumstances and the legal question is resolved in light of those circumstances.
A 1999 letter responding to one such request noted that, at that time, only four such opinions had been issued. None have been issued since and the four opinions, now obsolete, have been removed from 10 CFR Part 8.
Without offering analysis on the question, the Commission observes that “[t]here is also considerable doubt that the General Counsel, as an inferior officer, can bind the Commission on a question of law.” The General Counsel is appointed by the Commission pursuant to Section 1(b)(1)(ii) of Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1980 and is therefore an “inferior officer” whose work is directed and supervised by the Commission.
Since the implementation of these regulatory provisions, the Supreme Court has refined the case law on “inferior officers,” who hold more constrained roles and lack the ability to make decisions reserved to “superior officers” who report only to the president (see, e.g., SEC v. Jarkesy, 603 U.S. 109 (2024); Lucia v. SEC, 585 U.S. 237 (2018)).
Additional Sunsetting
Finally, the Commission also identifies for sunsetting certain regulations that it determines to be duplicative of others across the materials licensing scheme in parts 31, 32, 35, 36, and 39.
Overall, the implementation of the “Sunsetting EO” represents another early step in the NRC’s ongoing efforts at “wholesale” regulatory reform. More comprehensive changes are anticipated this year as the NRC continues to make progress on the “wholesale review” of its regulatory framework in response to Executive Order 14300, Ordering the Reform of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and other administration directives.
This wide-ranging deregulatory effort aims to modernize rules and guidance across multiple areas, with a major slate of proposed rules expected for public comment in February 2026.
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