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374 facts · 512 sources · updated 2026-09-30

Fact gov-012

newanalysisreported Governor told the public the NRC would help assure safety; the state's signed MOU named DOE, and Utah was suing the NRC
2025-05 · gov-012 · State of Utah, Spencer Cox, Utah Office of Energy Development, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Valar Atomics, Last Energy

Three state positions within six months, each from its own record. (1) In court: the State of Utah is a plaintiff, with Texas and Last Energy, in the suit filed on 29 December 2024 (per the release of Louisiana's environmental agency, which joined the suit in April 2025) in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, asking the court to set aside the NRC's reactor-licensing rule 'at least as applied to certain small, non-hazardous reactors' and to exempt the plaintiff states' research reactors and Last Energy's reactors from NRC licensing (World Nuclear News, 10 Jan 2025); Valar joined in April 2025 (orig-016, safe-028). (2) In its signed agreement: the OED-Valar MOU of 16 May 2025 names compliance with DOE regulations and does not mention the NRC (gov-011). (3) In public: KUTV (story dated 28 May 2025, from an interview days earlier; the only report of this remark found) reported Gov. Spencer Cox saying safety would be assured by working with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission through planning, building and implementation, and in July 2025 OED's director said Valar would have to follow all federal licensing rules (orig-065). The record: Ward 250 was authorized by DOE alone, with no NRC license planned (safe-001). The gap is between the governor's public account of NRC oversight and the state's own documents, which pointed to DOE and, in court, argued against NRC licensing of small reactors. What the governor was told before speaking is not in the record.

In plain termsAccording to KUTV, when Utah's governor first described the Valar deal, he said the federal nuclear regulator, the NRC, would help make sure it was safe. But the paper his energy office had signed days earlier named the Energy Department's rules and did not mention the NRC, and the State of Utah was at the same time suing the NRC to keep small reactors out of its licensing. The reactor was in fact approved by the Energy Department alone. The public was given a picture of oversight that the state's own documents did not describe.
verified 2026-09-29: Re-read WNN, KUTV and the MOU 2026-09-29. Fixed: the filing date was not in WNN and was off by a day (29 Dec 2024 per Louisiana DEQ, now cited); event date set to May 2025 (KUTV's story is dated 28 May from an earlier interview); plain no longer says the MOU named 'only' DOE rules. Downgraded to 'reported': the governor's NRC remark rests on one outlet (KUTV).

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