The claim that holds: DOE's pilot program gives companies no money, and the federal spending database agrees. USAspending (re-queried 29 Sept 2026 across every award type: contracts, IDVs, grants, loans, direct payments, other) shows one award to Valar Atomics Inc., DOE Other Transaction Agreement DENE0009560, obligating $0 (orig-055, gov-003). No Defense Department award to Valar appears there (gov-027); DOE's Launch Pad gives no funding (gov-010); the Defense Production Act fuel pact 'does not confer funds' (gov-001); the fuel-line selection is at Valar's own cost (orig-032). What the $0 does not count is help in kind, which Valar's founder described himself: the program 'gives us access to sites, national lab expertise, and federal oversight' (his statement to Wired, as quoted by ANS). (1) DOE bears its own costs of reviewing Valar's safety documents, per the program's request for applications as summarized by Hogan Lovells, whereas NRC applicants pay the NRC hourly fees (gov-032); (2) Ward 250's HALEU fuel was shipped from a federal criticality center in Nevada, with no public record of who owns the uranium or on what terms (gov-008); (3) Los Alamos supplied the critical assembly, staff and oversight for the NOVA test, at a center funded and managed by NNSA (fund-012); (4) Air Force C-17s flew the unfueled reactor to Utah, reportedly at Valar's expense (fund-013); (5) DOE has said pilot reactors count as DOE reactors under the federal nuclear-accident indemnity (fund-014). None of these has a published dollar value. Valar also spends in Washington: $70,000 of federal lobbying through June 2026, on nuclear policy and the budget bill that funds DOE, with only Congress listed as contacted (gov-004).

• USAspending award ASST_NON_DENE0009560_089 (API record, re-read 2026-09-29) (USAspending.gov (U.S. Department of the Treasury), 2026-05-19) primary government “VALAR OTHER TRANSACTION AGREEMENT (OTA) FOR DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY (DOE) REACTOR PILOT PROGRAM”
• USAspending award search, recipient 'VALAR ATOMICS', every award-type group (contracts, IDVs, grants, loans, direct payments, other), FY2008 to Sept 30, 2026 (run 2026-09-29; one result, $0) (USAspending.gov (U.S. Department of the Treasury)) primary government
• DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy issues Request for Application for Reactor Pilot Program (Daniel Stenger, Stewart Forbes, Valerie Marshall) (Hogan Lovells, 2025-07-01) analysis “Applicants will not be responsible for DOE costs incurred reviewing documents”
• Valar achieves cold criticality at LANL (American Nuclear Society, Nuclear Newswire, 2025-11-18) news “gives us access to sites, national lab expertise, and federal oversight”