By Adam Kahn
Welcome to the June 2025 edition of Climate Law Matters. Foley Hoag continues to monitor the latest legal developments affecting renewable energy, carbon-free energy, and other climate-related issues. In this issue, we take a closer look at recent changes impacting the nuclear (fission) power industry and advancements in fusion energy, the implications and responses to executive orders and federal actions, and other updates within the industry.

For many years, nuclear power operated in the background, providing reliable power from an aging fleet of traditional nuclear generating stations. This once low-profile industry has stormed back onto the forefront of American energy policy.

In our May 7 blog post, Recent Federal Developments for Advanced Nuclear Technologies, we reviewed recent legislative and regulatory efforts, as well as actions of the incoming administration, to support increases in nuclear power, primarily through streamlining permitting and approval processes.  Just weeks later, the President issued four executive orders specifically designed to accelerate permitting and spur development of nuclear resources, particularly for advanced nuclear reactors. Those developments were discussed in our May 29 blog post entitled Will Trump’s Executive Orders Ignite a New Era for the U.S. Nuclear Industry? Key Dates and Milestones.

Further changes are on the horizon. As of this writing, Congress is debating sweeping cutbacks in the major tax incentives for clean energy contained in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. The current draft legislation treats nuclear energy more favorably than it does wind, solar, and batteries, but the legislative process is ongoing. And on the state level, New York’s Governor Hochul just announced a direction to the New York Power Authority to build at least one gigawatt of new nuclear generation by the year 2040. We will continue to provide analysis and updates on our Energy and Climate Counsel blog as developments occur.

Fusion energy holds immense promise as a large-scale source of carbon-free energy. As we described in our April blog post, Fusion Update: Proposed Federal Streamlining Rules Are On The Way, over the past two years, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has signaled regulatory changes that should significantly streamline the licensing process for fusion energy projects. Unfortunately, the promised May 28, 2025 date for proposed rules to implement those changes came and went, and now the proposed rule is scheduled to be published on November 18, 2025. The reorganization of the NRC mandated by one of President Trump’s executive orders may further affect that date.

Separate from the federal efforts, many states are taking actions to further support development of nuclear facilities within their borders. We will report on those and other efforts in a future blog post.

We also introduce Foley Hoag’s Federal Actions Tracker, a new resource that provides clients and the public easy-to-access information on more than 300 actions taken to date. Our team discusses the importance of understanding the scope and implications of the significant number of executive orders and other federal actions that have been issued.

We discuss how U.S. states must be prepared to understand and effectively respond to executive orders and other actions issued by the federal government, as these directives are significantly impacting state policies and operations. Many of these federal actions have geopolitical implications, and we examine the legal uncertainty behind Trump’s proposed tariffs on Canadian electricity imports.

Lastly, we provide a variety of other updates including a review of the current health and trajectory of the EV industry.

Read the full report here.