Comments on DOE-HQ-2025-0603 are due on June 29, 2026. (
https://www.regulations.gov/docket/DOE-HQ-2025-0603)
Thanks to Lynda Williams for alerting us to this outrageous attempt to bypass normal legislative and rulemaking processes and for her in-depth summary of the issues involved (see link below).
Confusingly, there are actually two different ways to comment on this rulemaking with two different document IDs:
https://www.regulations.gov/commenton/DOE-HQ-2025-0603-0001
https://www.regulations.gov/commenton/DOE-HQ-2025-0603-0002
Our comment as submitted:
We strongly oppose allowing DOE-HQ-2025-0603 to proceed without full public hearings and congressional oversight.
This "direct final rule" is an attempt to bypass existing legislation including the allocation of funds without addressing the harm that will occur, the intent of Congress, or outstanding commitments from the federal government.
If the rule is allowed to proceed, major protections for the environment, public health, and public funding will cease to exist. There will be no review of the rules that are being dropped and there will not be any notification to the communities involved. Funds that Congress has allocated for specific purposes will be reallocated at the discretion of the Secretary of Energy with no public oversight.
In the first year alone (by July 13, 2027) the proposed rule would:
Remove whistleblower protections for contractors working on DOE projects. This means that it would be even more difficult to find out when contractors are bypassing required safety and quality guidelines. Contractor employees are professionals in their fields. If these people are not protected when they raise concerns about the professionalism of the work that is being completed, inevitably mistakes will be made and covered up, and shortcuts will be taken. Whistleblowers speak up at great risk (both economic and psychological). Whistleblowers have saved many lives across many industries. Such courageous actions require and deserve legal protection, and attempts to remove whistleblower protections is proof that the DOE does not expect its contractors to do things properly — and also is proof that that's okay with the DOE.
Allow reallocation of funds that have been designated for legally required cleanup at multiple Superfund sites. Many Superfund sites are already being targeted for new nuclear activities which will further pollute the environment and endanger the health of local residents. By cancelling the existing legal requirements for cleanup at these sites, the government is abdicating its responsibility for both past and future damage. The DOE should not be able to reallocate these funds -- both the cleanup requirements and the funds are legal obligations of the federal government. The funds were allocated to mitigate damage that has already been done, as well as to prevent further harm.
Eliminate many of the guidelines for siting nuclear waste. The reality is there is no place and no technology to safely store nuclear waste, and certainly not at an affordable price and with the approval by a majority of local citizens. That's why we have to stop making more. But eliminating the few guidelines that do exist will make it even more difficult for communities, states, and indigenous nations to protect their lands from being turned into nuclear waste dumps. Perhaps that is the DOE's intent, but that doesn't make it legal or morally correct. The government could try to write new legislation concerning the disposal of nuclear waste (this has been attempted many times with no success, because it's an INTRACTABLE problem). What the government should not do is unilaterally eliminate rules at the whim of a few people in a secretive agency.
Do away with the definition of an "extraordinary nuclear occurrence" which is the only way victims get any money under the Price-Anderson Act (PAA). PAA already would pay only a fraction of the real costs if a nuclear accident occurs, and it only exists because nuclear accidents cannot be properly insured. However, removing the definition of a triggering event makes PAA even more disingenuous. We are for repealing PAA, but that requires congressional action. If PAA is repealed, every nuclear power plant in the country will shut down because they will not be able to find insurance against the potential financial (let alone environmental and health) consequences of a nuclear meltdown, spent fuel fire, or dry cask breach.
DOE-HQ-2025-0603 allows additional rules to expire over the following five years so that by 2032, rules covering almost every part of the DOE's nuclear program would disappear.
The exceptions to automatic expiration are rules that the DOE believes would have "a chilling effect" on its ability to sign contractors. This alone is proof that the intent of this rulemaking is to promote new nuclear projects without ANY regard for public safety, existing legislation, or cleanup obligations. It is also further proof that the DOE doesn't trust contractors to do things correctly.
If the rules the DOE intends to expire are not effective, then the DOE should be asking how the rules can be changed instead of unilaterally removing and/or relaxing the rules without any useful discussion with either the public or Congress.
We incorporate by reference and adopt as our own the comments submitted to docket DOE-HQ-2025-0603 by Lynda Williams for Nuclear Free Hawai’i, nuclearfreehawaii.org (
https://www.regulations.gov/comment/DOE-HQ-2025-0603-0012).
Ace and Sharon Hoffman
Carlsbad California
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Background material:
Lynda Williams' excellent discussion of this attempt to bypass existing rules and legislation:
https://open.substack.com/pub/nuclearfreehawaii/p/doe-set-its-own-nuclear-safety-rules
Link to Lynda Williams' comment on this rule:
https://www.regulations.gov/comment/DOE-HQ-2025-0603-0012
Link to the Federal Register proposed rule-making. The following text provides incentive to comment, despite the fact that the DOE is attempting to make the rule final without comment.: "If DOE receives significant adverse comments, DOE will publish a notice of withdrawal for the direct final rule and will proceed with this proposed rule." Presumably, a proposed rule requires the DOE to address the public comments in some way.
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/05/29/2026-10729/zero-based-regulating
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Contact information for the author of this newsletter:
Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, California USA
Author, The Code Killers:
An Expose of the Nuclear Industry
Free download:
acehoffman.org
Blog:
acehoffman.blogspot.com
YouTube:
youtube.com/user/AceHoffman
Email: ace [at]
acehoffman.org
Founder & Owner,
The Animated Software Company
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