About 213 licenses covering radioactive materials in Indiana hospitals, university labs and industrial plants moved from federal to state regulators on September 30, 2026. Under an agreement signed on September 24 by NRC Chairman Ho K. Nieh and Gov. Mike Braun in Indianapolis, Indiana became the 41st state to hold that authority.
The state’s Department of Homeland Security now runs the licensing, inspection and enforcement that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission previously handled for those users.
The 213 licenses that moved to Indianapolis
The NRC’s announcement says the state will oversee approximately 213 licenses covering the use of radioactive materials in medical, academic and industrial settings. The arrangement rests on Section 274 of the Atomic Energy Act, which lets a state take over regulation of certain nuclear materials through a formal agreement with the federal government. States that do so are called Agreement States, and Indiana’s numbering as the 41st means 40 states already hold the authority it just took on. The listing on the NRC’s 2026 news index lists the announcement as release 26-078, “Indiana Becomes 41st State to Assume Oversight of Radioactive Materials,” dated September 24.
Nieh said in the release that Indiana “has demonstrated that its regulatory program can meet the NRC’s standards for protecting public health and safety.” Braun framed it differently: “This agreement means more power in the hands of Hoosiers, not Washington, D.C.” The two quotes describe the same document from opposite ends, one stressing that federal standards still apply and the other stressing that the decisions now sit in Indianapolis.
The docket and what the NRC kept
The path to the signing ran through a public docket. A Federal Register notice of May 29, 2026, filed under docket NRC-2026-1387, said Braun had asked the NRC on January 29, 2026 to enter the agreement, and it opened comments until June 15. The notice described transferring authority over byproduct material, source material and special nuclear material in non-critical quantities, and it counted the same 213 licenses that the final announcement repeats.
A state does not receive everything. The notice listed the NRC’s retained areas as production and utilization facilities, certain byproduct materials, imports and exports, ocean disposal and land disposal, and the agency keeps reviewing the state’s program periodically to confirm it still meets federal requirements. In the notice, Indiana also committed to address limited, section-specific inconsistencies in its regulations through later rulemaking so that its rules stay compatible with the federal ones.
Fees, forms and the Indiana program page
Trade press tracked the effort from its early stage. Exchange Monitor reported in May that Indiana was seeking to become the 41st Agreement State and that the NRC would retain oversight of about 20 licenses and federal agencies. The same report noted that Indiana has no operating commercial nuclear power plants but has passed legislation supporting small modular reactor development, though reactors fall in the category the NRC keeps. Exchange Monitor named two of those laws: SB 424, which covers small modular reactor costs, and SB 423, which authorizes deployment of up to two such reactors. Neither changes who regulates a reactor, since production and utilization facilities stay with the NRC under the agreement.
The state’s Radioactive Materials Control Program page describes the day-to-day mechanics. Applications for new licenses, renewals and amendments go through the state on Form 313, licenses run for 15 years, and Indiana adopted the NRC’s fee schedule in 10 CFR Parts 170 and 171, meaning licensees pay “the same fees previously due to the NRC,” billed annually on license anniversaries.
For a licensee, then, the change is mostly a change of address. The same fee schedule and the same kinds of licenses continue, with an Indianapolis office at 302 W. Washington Street handling the paperwork instead of NRC staff in the federal system. The program also lists an emergency line, 317-232-3830, for radiological incidents, a state number rather than a federal one.
The NRC’s role does not end with the signing. The agency’s announcement describes the users as medical, academic and industrial, and the state assumes full licensing, inspection and enforcement responsibility for each of them, covering everything from clinical diagnosis and treatment to university research. Section 274 agreements come with periodic federal reviews of the state program, and the NRC’s release says the agency will continue to check Indiana’s performance against federal standards. Nieh’s wording that Indiana “has demonstrated” it can meet NRC standards describes the state of the program at signing, and the periodic reviews are how the agency tests it afterward.
Anchoring the transfer is a count of 213 licenses, stated in the May notice under docket NRC-2026-1387 and repeated in the NRC’s September release, which puts the transfer’s size at roughly two hundred licenses in medicine, research and industry.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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