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Register entry No. 0004ReportE.O. 14302, 90 FR 22595

DOE publishes final Nuclear Fuel Cycle Consortium agreement under Defense Production Act section 708, 91 FR 40991

The Office of Nuclear Energy notice, published July 6, sets the terms under which invited fuel cycle companies can share data and plan jointly with an antitrust defense. It answers nine commenters on the November draft but names no participants and publishes no plan of action.

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Summary

The Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy published the final text of the “Nuclear Fuel Cycle Consortium” voluntary agreement on July 6, 2026, at 91 FR 40991, in Docket No. DOE-HQ-2025-0175 [1]. The agreement is made under section 708 of the Defense Production Act of 1950, codified at 50 U.S.C. 4558, and was approved by the Secretary of Energy after consultation with the Attorney General and the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission [1]. Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Theodore Garrish signed the notice on June 2 under delegated authority; the agreement text itself is dated April 2026 [1].

What the record shows

Between the November draft and the July text, one sentence about who decides changed. The draft said a plan of action would let participants exchange information, collaborate and “adjust commercial operations” as “DOE determines it necessary” to address the national energy emergency declared in Executive Order 14156 [2]. The final version reads “as DOE and DOJ, in consultation with the FTC, determine is necessary” [1].

The scope list also moved. The draft named seven stages: mining and milling, conversion, deconversion, enrichment, fuel fabrication, spent fuel recycling and reprocessing, and “End-users” [2]. The final keeps seven items but folds deconversion into fabrication and replaces end-users with two entries, “Utilities” and “Reactors” [1].

The operative terms:

  • Who can join. A participant is a “domestic private-sector company, regardless of the location of the ultimate business owner,” that has relevant capabilities and has been “specifically invited” by the chairperson, the Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy [1]. Subsidiaries under 50 percent or greater control are included [1].
  • The antitrust defense. Under section 708(j), a participant may assert as a defense to civil or criminal antitrust actions, federal or state, that it complied with section 708 and acted within the agreement or a plan of action [1]. Outside the development stage, the defense covers only actions “specified in, or was within the scope of” the agreement or a plan, the participant carries the burden of proof, and the defense fails if the action “was taken for the purpose of violating the antitrust laws” [1].
  • Plans of action. Specific obligations appear “only” in individual plans, not in the agreement [1]. A plan cannot take effect until the Attorney General, after consulting the FTC chairman, finds in writing that its purposes cannot reasonably be met with less anticompetitive effect and publishes that finding in the Federal Register [1].
  • Information handling. Participants are not to share competitively sensitive information directly with each other; DOE may request direct sharing only in “Exigent Circumstances,” with safeguards subject to prior review and audit by the Justice Department and the FTC [1]. DOE is to aggregate and anonymize data before distributing it [1]. The defined category of sensitive information includes prices, customer lists, cost data, inventory levels and capacity utilization [1].
  • Money. “Participation in this Agreement does not confer funds to Participants,” and participants bear their own expenses [1].
  • Duration. Five years at most, unless terminated earlier under 10 CFR 821.5 or extended under section 708(f)(2) [1].
  • Meetings and records. Committee meetings “will be closed by default,” recorded with transcripts, and DOE “will aim to publish” monthly schedules in the Federal Register [1]. Participants must keep records for five years and must attend at least 75 percent of scheduled meetings or risk suspension [1].

The final text adds material the draft did not contain: a committee governance appendix with rotating six-month industry co-leads elected by ranked-choice voting, an Advisory Forum of vetted subject-matter experts from labs, universities and consulting firms, a plan-of-action template and participant agreement forms [1, 2].

Where does the consortium sit in the DPA process?

The sequence began with Executive Order 14302, published May 29, 2025, which directed the Secretary of Energy to use section 708(c)(1) authority, delegated under Executive Order 13603, to seek voluntary agreements with domestic nuclear energy companies [4]. The order asked DOE to prioritize companies that had met “objective milestones” for cooperative procurement of LEU and HALEU, and it authorized DOE to provide “procurement support, forward contracts, or guarantees” to consortia, consistent with applicable law [4].

DOE announced the consortium on August 22, 2025, and asked interested companies to apply by email, with membership subject to approval by the Office of Nuclear Energy [9]. Three days later it published an interim final rule creating 10 CFR part 821, with comments due September 24, 2025 [3]. A public meeting followed on October 23, 2025, and DOE printed the draft agreement at 90 FR 51208 on November 17, with comments due November 24 [2].

The Justice Department has published three findings under 50 U.S.C. 4558(f)(1)(B), the step that lets an agreement or plan take effect. On December 12, 2025, Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater found by letter that the purposes could not reasonably be achieved with less anticompetitive effect; the notice appeared December 19 [5]. On April 17, 2026, the Antitrust Division issued findings on a “revised” agreement and on proposed plans of action, both published April 23 [6, 7]. Those notices describe three plan-of-action committees: Material Sufficiency (mining and milling, conversion, enrichment), Market-Integrated Fuel Utilization (fabrication and deconversion, recycling and reprocessing, reactors) and Human Mobilization (workforce development, supply chain, economics and finance) [6, 7].

The consortium was meeting before the final text was printed. A May 18 notice listed closed weekly sessions in May for reactors, recycling and reprocessing, and mining and milling, plus meetings of Committee 1 and Committee 3, closed under 5 U.S.C. 552b(c) [8]. American Nuclear Society reporting in April put membership at “representatives from 90 companies” and described a “Nuclear Dominance—3 by 33” campaign run in 60-day sprints [10].

The July 6 notice opens no comment period [1].

What the record does not show

Who signed. The agreement says public notice will be given as each participant joins or withdraws and that the list “will be published annually in the Federal Register” [1]. The July 6 notice contains blank signature forms and no names [1].

The plans of action. The Justice Department cleared plans of action in April, but their text is not in the record, and the July notice does not reproduce them [7, 1]. What conduct each plan covers, and so what the antitrust defense reaches, cannot be read from public documents.

Which committee structure governs. DOE’s response to comments describes seven technical committees, from Mining & Milling to Reactors [1]. The April Justice Department notices describe three committees with nine subcommittees, including workforce and finance groups that the agreement’s scope list does not name [6, 7]. Both notices also mention a “Uranium Fuel Infrastructure Resilience Mechanism,” or UFIRM, which does not appear in the July text [6, 7, 1].

When the five-year clock started. The duration runs from the date the section 708(f)(1) requirements were satisfied “as to the initial Voluntary Agreement” [1]. The record contains findings from both December 2025 and April 2026, and the agreement does not say which applies [5, 6].

Money. The agreement disclaims funding, while the executive order permits forward contracts and guarantees to consortia [1, 4]. No document in the docket ties either authority to this consortium’s committees.

Positions on the record

DOE lists nine commenters on the draft: six individuals, DISA Technologies, the Center for Regulatory Freedom and SuperCritical Technologies [1].

Ziqin (Joseph) Ding asked that the safe harbor be “tightly cabined” to “pro-competitive” and “resilience-enhancing conduct,” that DOE set explicit participant selection criteria, and that price, bid, output and customer-allocation exchanges be barred by default absent a narrow Justice Department and FTC exception [1]. DOE answered that Justice Department and FTC involvement throughout would address antitrust issues and pointed to the statute’s small-business provisions [1].

The Center for Regulatory Freedom supported the approach if structured with “disciplined respect” for statutory limits and asked for transparent membership criteria [1]. DOE said the current requirements “set out specified criteria for participation” [1]. Responding to that group and to SuperCritical Technologies, DOE added password protection for shared sensitive documents and limited access to committee records within the department [1].

SuperCritical Technologies asked DOE to replace “mining” with “uranium sourcing,” recognize water-based extraction, and add FOIA carve-outs for “pre-commercial proprietary process parameters and intellectual property” [1]. DOE declined the FOIA language, saying such information would be handled under existing exemptions and its rules at 10 CFR part 1004 [1]. DISA asked that remediation-driven uranium recovery and recycling of previously mined material be named in scope; DOE said the Recycling & Reprocessing Committee would take it up [1].

DOE also received a filing from the Citizens Rulemaking Alliance styled a “Petition to Correct Procedural and Analytical Deficiencies and to Reissue the Rule Through Notice-and Comment” [1]. DOE said the draft-agreement comment request did not reopen the August 2025 interim final rule, and it did “not address the substance of that submission” [1].

Reading-room questions

Questions readers bring to this record, answered from the documents cited below.

What is the DOE Nuclear Fuel Cycle Consortium voluntary agreement?
It is a Defense Production Act section 708 agreement, approved by the Secretary of Energy after consultation with the Attorney General and the FTC chairman, under which invited U.S. fuel cycle companies coordinate planning and data sharing with DOE [1]. The final text was published July 6, 2026, at 91 FR 40991 [1].
Does joining the DOE DPA consortium give companies antitrust immunity?
No. Participants get a statutory defense under DPA section 708(j), available only for actions within the scope of the agreement or an activated plan of action, and the participant bears the burden of proof [1]. The agreement says it conveys no other immunity [1].
Can any nuclear company join the DOE fuel cycle consortium?
A participant must be a domestic private-sector company with relevant capabilities that the chairperson, the Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy, has specifically invited and that has agreed to the terms [1]. DOE's 2025 announcement said membership requires approval by the Office of Nuclear Energy [9].
Does the consortium agreement come with DOE funding?
No. The agreement says participation confers no funds and that participants bear their own expenses [1]. Executive Order 14302 separately authorizes DOE to provide procurement support, forward contracts or guarantees to such consortia, consistent with applicable law [4].
How long does the DPA nuclear fuel agreement last?
No more than five years from the date the section 708(f)(1) requirements are satisfied for the initial agreement, unless terminated earlier or extended under section 708(f)(2) [1].

Note on sourcing

The July 6 notice publishes the agreement's text but not its signatories, and DOE had published no list of participants as of publication. The figure of 90 member companies comes from American Nuclear Society reporting in April 2026 and has not been confirmed in a DOE filing. The plans of action that the Justice Department cleared in April have not been published, so their terms are described here only as the department's notice summarized them. The Citizens Rulemaking Alliance petition is described from DOE's account of it; this report does not draw on the petition itself.

Sources

  1. Implementing Voluntary Agreements Under the Defense Production Act, notice of availability, 91 FR 40991 (FR Doc. 2026-13486)Federal Register (Department of Energy), July 6, 2026 · federalregister.gov
  2. Implementing Voluntary Agreements Under the Defense Production Act, notice of availability and request for comment (draft agreement), 90 FR 51208 (FR Doc. 2025-20008)Federal Register (Department of Energy), November 17, 2025 · federalregister.gov
  3. Implementing Voluntary Agreements Under the Defense Production Act, interim final rule, 90 FR 41279 (FR Doc. 2025-16235), RIN 1901-AB73Federal Register (Department of Energy), August 25, 2025 · federalregister.gov
  4. Executive Order 14302, Reinvigorating the Nuclear Industrial Base, 90 FR 22595Federal Register (Executive Office of the President), May 29, 2025 · federalregister.gov
  5. Notice Pursuant to the Defense Production Act of 1950 (review of voluntary agreement), 90 FR 59581 (FR Doc. 2025-23443)Federal Register (Department of Justice, Antitrust Division), December 19, 2025 · federalregister.gov
  6. Notice Pursuant to the Defense Production Act of 1950 (review of revised voluntary agreement), 91 FR 21849 (FR Doc. 2026-07892)Federal Register (Department of Justice, Antitrust Division), April 23, 2026 · federalregister.gov
  7. Notice Pursuant to the Defense Production Act of 1950 (review of plans of action), 91 FR 21850 (FR Doc. 2026-07900)Federal Register (Department of Justice, Antitrust Division), April 23, 2026 · federalregister.gov
  8. Notice of Closed Meetings To Implement Voluntary Agreements and Related Plans of Action Under the Defense Production Act, 91 FR 28584 (FR Doc. 2026-09923)Federal Register (Department of Energy), May 18, 2026 · federalregister.gov
  9. Energy Department to Establish New Consortium for Nuclear Fuel Supply ChainU.S. Department of Energy, August 22, 2025 · energy.gov
  10. DOE consortium begins new initiative aimed at growing fuel cycleAmerican Nuclear Society (Nuclear News), April 28, 2026 · ans.org

Subject headings

Cross-references

Other register entries filed under the same subject headings.

  1. No. 0012 · Report · 4 shared headingsDOE publishes three DPA plans of action for nuclear fuel consortium, with 60-day reports on uranium permitting and recycling
  2. No. 0023 · Report · 1 shared headingDOE asks for input on foreign grid-equipment limits under E.O. 14421, 91 FR 57322
  3. No. 0021 · Report · 1 shared headingDOE stays federal-building fossil fuel rule a third time, to March 1, 2027, 91 FR 56371