California’s AB 2647 is a roadmap to a fast-food nuclear nightmare …
“I’ll take a grilled patty-meltdown please!”
If enacted, California Assembly Bill 2647 will pave the way for the fast food style deployment of so-called “advanced nuclear technology.”
On August 28th, 2026, Public Watchdogs joined fourteen other California advocacy groups urging Governor Newsom to veto the bill. The letter, which was drafted by the highly respected nonprofit, Committee to Bridge the Gap, explains that California has enjoyed a moratorium on the construction of new nuclear reactors for 50 years.
Under current law, no new nuclear power plants can be built in California until the federal government approves of a method for the safe disposal or highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel. According to the Committee To Bridge The Gap:
 Get the letter | “The chair and top staff of the NRC were told by a top Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) staffer that the agency would be expected to “rubber stamp” its approvals; another DOGE official (who went on to become the Department of Energy’s top nuclear policy attorney) told DOE staff to “assume the NRC is going to do whatever we tell the NRC to do.” (Committee to Bridge the Gap) |
A “Hellspawn” of Greed and Stupidity
The old standards for nuclear safety have been junked in favor or “looser” safety regulations that increase the acceptable levels of radiation exposure to humans.
Under Trump’s new nuclear regime, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is no longer responsible for ensuring the safety of nuclear power plants. With the trump plan, the NRC’s staff of scientists and nuclear experts have been replaced by untrained bureaucrats from the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB). None of OMB’s paper pushers are scientists, yet they are responsible for “enforcing” nuclear safety rules.
The new “rubber stamp” approval process.
“The chair and top staff of the NRC were told by a top Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) staffer that the agency would be expected to ‘rubber stamp’ its approvals” of the so-called advanced nuclear technology.
Charles Langley, the executive Director of Public Watchdogs, explains advanced nuclear technology this way: “It the same old crap in a different bag.” According to Langley, “This is why Assembly Bill 2647 is a Hell-spawn of greed and stupidity. It is a curse upon our children for thousands of years because it paves the way for ‘rubber stamp’ approvals of dangerous and untested nuclear dseigns.”
If enacted, AB 2647 will enable a high-speed “McNukes” approval process for the fast deployment of new and untested nuclear power plants, known as “Small Modular Reactors” or SMRs. “The intent behind AB 2647 is to create a legal system where foisting nuclear power plants into your neighborhood will be as easy as getting a McDonald’s Franchise” says Langley. “They want to put their ‘McNuke” reactors in every neighborhood in California. Even worse, they have no plan for getting rid of the filthy nuclear waste that a McNuke generates. ”
According to Nina Babiarz, Public Watchdogs’ Director of Development, “What people don’t understand is that ‘advanced’ nuclear reactors create more waste than traditional plants. SMRs do nothing but defecate deadly radioactive waste that is toxic to all human life. ”
“The radioactive waste generated by SMRs is deadly for at least 25,000 years. There are no permanent storage locations, and science has not invented containers that can hold the radioactive waste safely for thousands of years” says Babiarz.
A brief History of “Do-Nothing Regulation” at San Onofre
On January 31, 2012, the Unit 3 reactor at San Onofre was shut down after it polluted the atmosphere with an unknown quantity of deadly radioactive steam. We will never know how much radiation was released because it was never independently verified. Why? Because San Onofre’s owner, Southern California Edison, failed to report the leak until it had dissipated into the surrounding communities. Legally, Edison was required to report the leak to the NRC within one hour.
In violation of federal law, Edison finally filed its “NRC Event Report” for the January 31 leak 58-days later on March 29, 2012, when “a high radiation alarm … indicated a tube leak.”
The US Code of Federal Regulations 50.72 mandates that a nuclear power plant must report a radiation leak within one hour to the NRC. Edison took 58-days and the NRC did nothing.
Under the Trump administration we fully expect the new team of nuclear bureaucrats at OMB to keep doing just that: Nothing.