Comments on a proposed Nuclear Regulatory Commission rule that would replace a single set of earthquake design requirements for reactors with a graded one are due by 11:59 p.m. Eastern on November 9, 2026. The rule was published in the Federal Register on September 24 under docket NRC-2025-1138, and the agency has scheduled two webinars, on October 8 and October 14, to walk through it.
Earthquake design is one provision among many. The proposal, titled “Regulatory Enhancements for Reactor Licensing, Decommissioning, and Operational Oversight,” touches licensing, decommissioning, operator licensing, event reporting and siting, and the NRC says it carries out Executive Order 14300.
A graded approach to earthquake design
The agency’s release announcing the proposal lists a “risk-informed, graded approach to earthquake design requirements” among the major changes. The Federal Register notice carries a matching section headed “Risk Informed Seismic Design” under 10 CFR Part 50, and its table of contents includes Appendix S to Part 50, the earthquake engineering criteria that existing designs are measured against.
In plain terms, the NRC wants requirements to scale with the seismic hazard and the design in question, in place of one uniform standard. Chairman Ho Nieh said the overhaul “replaces outdated requirements with smarter, risk-informed approaches that reflect today’s technologies, knowledge and operating experience.” Where the hazard is lower or the design simpler, a graded standard asks for less than a uniform one, which is why the provision belongs to a package whose stated aim is reducing burden.
The Federal Register notice, document 2026-19568 at 91 FR 60702, puts the net savings from the whole rule at $311 million to $411 million over 30 years. It also proposes dropping six nonemergency event-reporting requirements under section 50.72 while keeping five categories, among them reactor protection system actuations.
Around it sit the rest of the rule’s changes, as the notice lays them out. Standard design approvals would stop expiring. Decommissioning provisions would expand partial site release requests and shorten waiting periods before major decommissioning work starts. Operator licensing would get simpler simulator requirements and a new category of generally licensed reactor operators for self-reliant mitigation facilities. Part 21 would define “basic component,” “commercial grade items” and “dedicating entity” more tightly. The earthquake provision is one line in a document built to touch nine parts of the federal regulations.
Webinars on October 8 and 14
Both sessions run on Microsoft Teams. The NRC’s advisory sets the first for October 8, from 2 to 3:30 p.m. Eastern, and the second for October 14, from 9 to 10:30 a.m. Eastern. Agency staff will give an overview of the proposed rule and related implementation activities and answer questions. The public meeting schedule carries the Teams link under meeting ID 20260748.
The sessions fall inside the comment period, so a commenter can attend the first on October 8, read the notice afterward and still have a month before the November 9 close. The second, on October 14, falls a little over three weeks before it. The release makes one point explicit: comments are not accepted during the webinars. They exist to explain the rule, and the record is built only through the docket.
Docket NRC-2025-1138 and the November 9 deadline
Comments go in electronically through regulations.gov under docket NRC-2025-1138. The NRC describes the window as 45 days after publication, and the notice fixes the end at 11:59 p.m. Eastern on November 9, 2026. Earlier trade coverage anticipated a 30-day window, so the Federal Register date is the one that holds.
The notice lists the affected rules as 10 CFR Parts 20, 21, 50, 52, 53, 55, 70, 72 and 75, with the Part 50 changes carrying the seismic language. Its regulatory identifier is RIN 3150-AL45. The earthquake provisions sit in the Part 50 portion of the notice, under the “Risk Informed Seismic Design” heading, with Appendix S listed alongside, and each comment is identified by the docket number.
The rule is large. The American Nuclear Society’s account of the proposal describes a 339-page document that reaches existing plants and new applicants under Parts 50, 52 and 53. The seismic provision is therefore a small part of a long text, and the detailed discussion sits in the Federal Register notice rather than in the announcement.
POWER magazine, in its coverage of the rulemaking, quoted Nieh describing optional regulatory pathways and an effort to strip out rigid frameworks and unnecessary conservatism. He said the Commission is aiming to review a final rule around the end of this year or early next year, which leaves the November 9 deadline as the main window for changes to the earthquake language before Commission review of a final rule, which Nieh places around the turn of the year.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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