Implementing Voluntary Agreements Under the Defense Production Act

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY <CFR>10 CFR Part 821</CFR> <DEPDOC>[DOE-HQ-2025-0175]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1901-AB73</RIN> <SUBJECT>Implementing Voluntary Agreements Under the Defense Production Act</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of Nuclear Energy, Department of Energy. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Interim final rule; request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This interim final rule codifies standards and procedures the Department of Energy will follow when developing and carrying out voluntary agreements and plans of action under the Defense Production Act. The Defense Production Act provides a defense from antitrust laws with respect to any action taken to develop or carry out any voluntary agreement or plan of action when certain criteria are met. The rule will apply the Defense Production Act's long-standing provisions and will be set out in a new and dedicated part in the Code of Federal Regulations. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This interim rule will be effective on and comments are due by September 24, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Documents relevant to this rulemaking are posted on the Federal eRulemaking Portal at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> (Docket: DOE-HQ-2025-0175). Submit comments, labeled “Implementing Voluntary Agreements Under Section 708 of the Defense Production Act of 1950, RIN 1901-AB73,” using the <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal: www.regulations.gov.</E> <E T="03">Instructions:</E> All submissions must include the agency name, “Department of Energy,” and docket number, DOE-HQ-2025-0175, for this rulemaking. All comments received will be posted without change to <E T="03">www.regulations.gov,</E> including any personal information provided. Do not submit any information you consider to be private, Confidential Business Information (CBI), or other information whose disclosure is restricted by statute. <E T="03">Docket:</E> For access to the docket to read comments received, go to <E T="03">www.regulations.gov.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Ms. Sarah McPhee-Charrez, U.S. Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20585, telephone: 202-586-1092, email: <E T="03">DPAconsortium@nuclear.energy.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Basis for the Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Basis for Issuing an Interim Final Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Urgent and Compelling Circumstances Exist</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. DOE Solicits Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Procedural Requirements</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Executive Orders 12866 and 13563</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Regulatory Flexibility Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. National Environmental Policy Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Executive Order 13132</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Executive Order 13175</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Executive Order 13211</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">G. Unfunded Mandates Act of 1995</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">H. Paperwork Reduction Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">I. Executive Orders 14154 and 14192</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">J. Congressional Notification</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. Approval of the Office of the Secretary</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> The Department of Energy (“DOE”) is issuing this interim final rule to codify procedures for implementing voluntary agreements pursuant to Section 708 of the Defense Production Act of 1950 (“DPA”), Public Law 81-774 (Sept. 8, 1950) (codified at 50 U.S.C. 4558). Section 708(c)(1) of the DPA provides that upon finding that conditions exist which may pose a direct threat to the national defense or its preparedness programs, the President may consult with representatives of industry, business, financing, agriculture, labor, and other interests in order to provide for the making by such persons, with the approval of the President, of voluntary agreements and plans of action to help provide for the national defense. 50 U.S.C. 4558(c)(1). The President effectively made such a finding when signing Executive Order (“E.O.”) 14302 (Reinvigorating the Nuclear Industrial Base). 90 FR 22595 (May 29, 2025). E.O. 14302, among other things, emphasized that the United States currently faces a variety of serious energy-related challenges ultimately affecting national security and preparedness. These challenges include the global race to dominate in artificial intelligence, a growing need for energy independence, and the need for access to uninterruptible power supplies for national security. <E T="03">Id.</E> It noted further that the United States' nuclear fuel cycle infrastructure has severely atrophied, leaving the Nation heavily dependent on foreign sources of uranium as well as for uranium enrichment and conversion services. <E T="03">Id.</E> The seriousness of this situation is both well-known and well-documented. <E T="03">See, e.g.,</E> EIA, U.S. Nuclear Generators Import Nearly All the Uranium Concentrate They Use, In-Brief Analysis (Jan. 30, 2025) (detailing nearly complete reliance on imported uranium concentrate used in making nuclear fuel for U.S. reactors); America's Awkward Energy Insecurity Problem, Foreign Policy (Jan. 20, 2025) (highlighting Russia's current complete monopoly on the commercial production of fuel that would be used in the coming generation of advanced nuclear plants that would provide the extra power needed to run data centers and power artificial intelligence); <E T="03">and</E> U.S. Ramps Up Hunt for Uranium to End Reliance on Russia, NY Times, Sept. 30, 2024 (quoting one uranium mining executive's characterization of domestic uranium production as being like “a broken arm that's been in a cast for a long time . . . The muscle atrophies, and that's where our industry is.”). This situation is further exacerbated by the fact that since 2017, 87 percent of all new nuclear reactors that have been installed are based on reactor designs from two foreign countries. 90 FR 22595. Reversing this situation requires swift and decisive action “to jumpstart America's nuclear energy industrial base and ensure our national and economic security by increasing fuel availability and production, securing civil nuclear supply chains, improving the efficiency with which advanced nuclear reactors are licensed, and preparing our workforce to establish America's energy dominance and accelerate our path towards a more secure and independent energy future.” <E T="03">Id.</E> Although some initial steps have been taken to address current vulnerabilities, such as the enactment of the Prohibiting Russian Uranium Imports Act, Public Law 118-62 (May 13, 2024) and the repurposing of $2.72 billion in funding intended for the Civilian Nuclear Credit Program towards the development of domestic uranium enrichment capacity, <E T="03">see</E> Consolidated Appropriations Act, Div. D—Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024, Sec. 312 (March 9, 2024), these steps, while critical, are insufficient to ensure that the United States can break its current dependency on foreign-sourced uranium and develop a reliable supply of domestically-sourced nuclear fuel. Additionally, a recent DOE report documented the status of U.S. grid reliability and security. See DOE, Report on Evaluating U.S. Grid Reliability and Security (July 7, 2025). Significantly, the report noted that numerous factors increase the risks to the reliability of the U.S. electric grid. These factors, such as the current pace of retirement of electric power capacity generation plus load growth (which is projected to increase the risk of power outages by 100-fold by 2030), the insufficiency of the currently planned replacement generation supply, and the projected load growth of Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) innovation, point to the urgent necessity of robust and rapid reforms. These reforms are crucial to powering enough AI data centers while safeguarding grid reliability. See generally, DOE, Resource Adequacy Report—Evaluating the Reliability and Security of the United States Electric Grid, at 1 (July 2025). The projected increases in demand are expected to severely stress the electrical grid. These expected load increases are already being reflected in the mandatory integrated resource plans (“IRPs”) that utilities routinely file with state regulators regarding their planned usage of various resources to meet those projected energy demands. (An IRP is essentially a forecast of a utility's load obligations and its plan to reliably meet those obligations by supply side and demand side resources over a set period of time.) In at least one case, projected increases as a result of demands from new businesses moving into the state—including AI data centers—were identified as a key factor for the filing of an updated IRP highlighting a significant increase in its projected electrical energy demands. See Georgia Power, 2023 Integrated Resource Plan Update, at 1-2 and 9-10 (noting Georgia's significant increase in projected energy load demands from increased economic activity, including from AI data centers). Utility commissions also recognize the considerable lead-time currently required to incorporate new nuclear power reactors into the electrical grid. See State of North Carolina Utilities Commission (Raleigh), In the Matter of Biennial Consolidated Carbon Plan and Integrated Resource Plans of Duke Energy Carolinas, LLC, and Duke Energy Progress, Docket No. E-100, Sub 190, Order Accepting Stipulation, Granting Partial Waiver of Commission Rule R8-60A(d)(4), and Providing Further Direction for Future Planning, at 31, 63, 66, 92 (Note 6), 122-127, and 178-79 (Nov. 1, 2024) (supporting u ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 56k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━