President Donald Trump has fired a nuclear regulatory commissioner whom he himself appointed to the agency at the end of his first term.
“President Trump terminated my position with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission without cause, contrary to existing law and longstanding precedent regarding removal of independent agency appointees,” Chris Hanson, who served as chair of the commission until January 2025, wrote in a statement Monday.
Hanson was fired Friday, he said. Trump appointed Hanson to the commission in 2020, and former President Joe Biden elevated him to chair the agency in 2021. Hanson’s term as chair ended in January, and he returned to serving on the five-person board.
His firing comes three weeks after Trump signed a series of executive orders intended to boost the United States’ struggling domestic nuclear power industry, including one order that directed a significant reorganization at the NRC.
“My focus over the last five years has been to prepare the agency for anticipated change in the energy sector, while preserving the independence, integrity, and bipartisan nature of the world’s gold standard nuclear safety institution,” Hanson wrote Monday morning. “It has been an honor to serve alongside the dedicated public servants at the NRC. I continue to have full trust and confidence in their commitment to serve the American people by protecting public health and safety and the environment.”
No commissioner of the NRC, an independent body created by Congress that regulates commercial nuclear power, has ever been fired since its creation in 1975, though one chair resigned in 2012 after political pressure.
Hanson learned he had been fired just after 6 p.m. on Friday, via a two-line email titled “Message from PPO.”
The email read: “On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as Commissioner of the U.s. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is terminated effective immediately. Thank you for your service.”
Since taking office for his second term, Trump has fired the leaders of independent commissions and agencies across government, with varied success after court challenges. On Friday, a federal judge ruled that Trump must reinstate three members of the independent Consumer Product Safety Commission because Trump appeared to fire them without cause.
“All organizations are more effective when leaders are rowing in the same direction. President Trump reserves the right to remove employees within his own Executive Branch who exert his executive authority,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told NOTUS in a statement.
Republicans in Congress have long blamed the NRC’s strict and slow regulatory process for the country’s failure to produce new nuclear plants over the last several decades. But industry experts have largely urged the administration to proceed cautiously with any major changes at the NRC, worried that any serious upheaval at the agency will actually increase delays and reduce public trust in the safety of nuclear power.
Hanson did not indicate in his statement whether he would pursue legal action to challenge his firing.
—
Anna Kramer is a reporter at NOTUS.