Generic Environmental Impact Statement for Licensing of New Nuclear Reactors

What it does

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is amending its regulations that govern the NRC's environmental reviews of new nuclear reactor applications under the National Environmental Policy Act. The rulemaking codifies the generic findings of the NRC's Generic Environmental Impact Statement for Licensing of New Nuclear Reactors. The Generic Environmental Impact Statement for Licensing of New Nuclear Reactors uses a technology-neutral framework and a set of plant and site parameters to determine which potential environmental impacts would be common to the construction, operation, and decommissioning of many new nuclear reactors, and thus appropriate for a generic analysis, and which potential environmental impacts would be unique, and thus require a project-specific analysis. The NRC is also issuing revision 4 to regulatory guide 4.2, "Preparation of Environmental Reports for Nuclear Power Stations," and COL-ISG-030, "Environmental Considerations Associated with New Nuclear Reactor Applications that Reference the Generic Environmental Impact Statement (NUREG-2249)." This rulemaking is separate from NRC's comprehensive review and reform of its regulations, including those governing environmental review, in accordance with Executive Order (E.O.) 14300, "Ordering the Reform of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission."

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's summary, as published in the Federal Register.

What changed in the regulation

1 part of Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations:

10 CFR 51

Wording on eCFR: the day before it took effect and from the day it took effect (first part listed).

Compared with

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has published 34 final rules in 2026 so far, compared with 28 in all of 2025.

Counted by the Tribune from Federal Register records since Jan. 1, 2025.

Before this

No earlier Federal Register document under regulation identifier 3150-AK55 since Jan. 1, 2025.

What happens next and when

This final rule is effective May 26, 2026.

The agency's dates, word for word.

Check it yourself

• The document in the Federal Register
• Docket NRC-2020-0101 on Regulations.gov
• Title 10 on eCFR

The record as published

Source: the Federal Register (public domain). The document in the Federal Register