MR. WAGNER: Employees from DOGE/DOE seem to be involved in most, if not all, of the policy decisions being made at the NRC that affect current/future licensees and applicants. Are these personnel required to abide by the Prohibited Securities Rule that most NRC staff are required to follow?
CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: Thank you. So the short answer, as I understand it, is it depends.
PARTICIPANT: Good morning. In light of the recent Executive Orders and the DOGE staffers at the agency and the President’s firing of former Commissioner Hanson, I’d like to ask for your perspectives on the independence of our agency and what that currently means in practice.
CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: So we are an independent safety regulator. That is not going to change. I’m going to make the right decision based on what comes before me, and I’m willing to stand on that, regardless of outside influence or, you know, what could happen and things like that. I mean, safety is the North Star. Safety is what it’s about… we are independent as a safety regulator, and we must maintain that because we are the gold standard, not just here, but around the world. And so that’s important, and everybody knows it. And so far, from what we’ve seen, nobody’s infringed on that at all.
MR. WAGNER: At the time of writing, I am aware of more than one NRC team that DOGE detailees from DOE attempted to give orders to or to direct the work of. If this happens to staff, what is the appropriate response?
CHAIRMAN WRIGHT: We’ve mentioned several times, if you sense, if you feel that that could be happening, you’ve got to bring it to your supervisor’s attention, your branch chief’s attention, to Mike King’s attention, to our attention. Don’t sit on it. We need to we need to know. We need to hear. And, quite honestly, we have heard from time to time.
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