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Energy and permitting policy, read from the public record.

Register entry No. 0016Report90 FR 24428; Docket No. 50-614

NRC sets Sept. 22 mandatory hearing on Long Mott Xe-100 construction permit, 91 FR 53900

The uncontested hearing on Long Mott Energy's four-reactor application in Calhoun County, Texas, will run as a staff-led public meeting in Port Lavaca under the NRC's June policy statement. Written comments close Oct. 6.

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Summary

When the Nuclear Regulatory Commission docketed Long Mott Energy’s construction permit application in June 2025, it said the uncontested hearing would come “at a time and place to be set in the future by the presiding officer” [7]. The notice published August 20, 2026, at 91 FR 53900 sets that hearing for September 22 in Port Lavaca, Texas, but there is no presiding officer in the old sense: NRC staff will run it as a public meeting under section 189a of the Atomic Energy Act and the Commission’s June 2026 policy statement [1, 2]. The application, Docket No. 50-614 (Docket ID NRC-2025-0079), seeks a permit to build four X-energy Xe-100 reactors in Calhoun County [1].

What the record shows

The facility. Long Mott Energy, LLC applied by letter dated March 31, 2025, under 10 CFR part 50 and section 103 of the Act [1]. The Long Mott Generating Station would be an 800 megawatts-thermal plant of four Xe-100 small modular high-temperature gas-cooled reactors and common facilities [1]. The site sits next to Seadrift Operations, a Dow chemical plant [4, 10].

The hearing. An open house begins at 5 p.m. central time at the Bauer Community Center, 2300 Hwy. 35 Bypass N, followed by the hearing at 5:30 p.m. [1]. Staff will present the review process and an overview of the application. A public comment period of up to 3 hours follows, with each speaker limited to 5 minutes at a time [1]. Long Mott Energy was invited to give a presentation of no more than 30 minutes [1].

The notice draws a line between this event and the contested case. “This is not an opportunity to request a contested hearing,” it says, pointing readers instead to the June 10, 2025, notice and the Electronic Hearing Docket under Docket No. 50-614-CP [1]. The notice was signed August 18 by Mehdi Reisi Fard, director of the Division of Advanced Reactor Engineering in the Office of Advanced Reactors [1].

The written record. The hearing record stays open until October 6, 2026, for comments and questions sent to a designated NRC email address. “The NRC staff will not consider comments or questions received by other means or after the deadline of October 6, 2026,” the notice states [1].

The rules behind the format. Two Commission actions this spring changed what the hearing is. The final rule “Increased Flexibility in the Mandatory Hearing Process,” published April 15 at 91 FR 20063 and effective May 15, deleted 10 CFR 51.105 and 51.107 [3]. Those sections had required a presiding officer to decide whether NEPA’s requirements were met, weigh costs against benefits and judge whether the staff’s environmental review was adequate [3]. The NRC traced them to the 1971 Calvert Cliffs’ decision and concluded that “At bottom, Calvert Cliffs requires only that NEPA issues receive equal treatment to non-environmental issues during the hearing process” [3]. The rule also says the change could let the hearing happen early enough that it “is not on the critical path to license issuance” [3].

The policy statement, published June 8 at 91 FR 34661, then delegated the Commission’s authority to conduct mandatory hearings to the Executive Director of Operations, who may pass it to an office director [2]. A facilitator from the NRC’s in-house facilitator program runs each hearing, with at least one Senior Executive Service employee present [2]. The format is “a public hearing style format frequently used by local government bodies,” and the staff must transcribe the formal portion, publish a meeting summary with answers to questions left open, and take written comments for two weeks afterward [2]. The Long Mott notice follows that template, down to the 3-hour comment block and the two-week window to October 6 [1, 2].

Where it sits in the process

The NRC’s June 2025 notice listed the application as docketed March 31, 2025, and set an August 11, 2025, deadline for hearing requests [7]. San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper petitioned to intervene. A Licensing Board established in August 2025 ruled in LBP-26-01, issued January 22, 2026, that the group had standing and had submitted a contention that was “in part, admissible” [5]. Nuclear News reported that the admitted contention claims the applicant “has failed to demonstrate its financial qualifications,” and that contentions on Xe-100 functional containment and environmental effects were dismissed or withdrawn [10]. The Board’s February 18 order gave notice that the contested hearing would use the procedures in 10 CFR part 2, subparts C and L [5].

The environmental review closed on a shorter track than the rules contemplated. On May 18, 2026, staff issued an environmental assessment and a finding of no significant impact, together with one-time exemptions from 10 CFR 51.20(b)(1), 51.25 and 51.75(a), which otherwise require an environmental impact statement for a power reactor construction permit [4]. The assessment concluded “that the potential impacts from Long Mott Generating Station would be SMALL for each potentially affected environmental resource” [4]. This site’s July report on the NRC’s proposed reactor licensing overhaul covers other parts of the same rule revision under Executive Order 14300.

The Commission also had the contested case on its own calendar. Its August 7 affirmation session listed “Appeal Of LBP-26-1 (Ruling On Intervention Petition)” in the Long Mott matter, affirmed with less than a week’s notice by a 5-0 vote [6]. The August 20 hearing notice refers to “the ongoing proceeding” on the Electronic Hearing Docket [1].

What comes after the Sept. 22 hearing?

Under the policy statement, staff will post a transcript-based summary and its answers to open questions, and is expected to “consider and incorporate” comments into its review as appropriate [2]. Nuclear News reported in February that the NRC expected to finish its environmental and safety reviews “by June and November, respectively” [10]. A construction permit would not authorize operation; Long Mott Energy would need a separate operating license [4].

What the record does not show

  • A safety evaluation. The July 7 notice for TVA’s Clinch River Unit 1 hearing listed a completed staff Safety Evaluation Report and a final supplemental environmental impact statement [8]. The Long Mott notice cites no safety evaluation [1].
  • An early hearing. The policy statement says hearings should come “approximately 30 days after a complete application is docketed” [2]. The Long Mott hearing comes after the environmental review is finished, and the notice does not explain how the timing for applications docketed before June 2026 was set [1, 4].
  • How comments feed the permit decision. With the presiding-officer findings removed, neither the rule nor the notice says what weight a hearing comment carries in the staff’s safety or environmental conclusions beyond the policy statement’s “as appropriate” [2, 3].
  • Public comment on the new process. The Commission decided that “seeking formal comment on this policy statement is not in the public interest,” and the April rule was issued without notice and comment as a procedural rule [2, 3].
  • The appeal outcome. The Sunshine Act notice lists the appeal for affirmation; it does not state the result [6].
  • The financial picture. Nuclear News wrote that “financial concerns surrounding the project were magnified in January” but the record cited here does not set out Long Mott Energy’s financing [10].

Positions on the record

The Commission. The policy statement says an extra formal check of the staff is “simply unnecessary” because staff carries “prime responsibility for technical fact-finding on uncontested matters” [2]. It describes the new hearing as “a forum for information exchange and public input, in contrast to the current focus on an independent review of the staff’s review” [2]. It ties the change to the ADVANCE Act and to section 5(j) of Executive Order 14300, which directs the NRC to “Streamline the public hearings process” [2, 9].

The applicant. In the environmental record, Long Mott Energy says the plant would replace aging natural-gas cogeneration that supplies steam and power to Seadrift Operations, and would demonstrate the Xe-100 under DOE’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program [4].

The intervenor. San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper’s admitted contention challenges Long Mott Energy’s financial qualifications, according to Nuclear News [10]. Its other contentions, on functional containment and environmental effects, did not survive the Board’s January ruling [10].

The NRC staff’s written record on the September 22 hearing closes October 6.

Reading-room questions

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

When and where is the NRC hearing on the Long Mott nuclear plant?
September 22, 2026, at the Bauer Community Center, 2300 Hwy. 35 Bypass N, Port Lavaca, Texas [1]. An open house starts at 5 p.m. central time and the hearing at 5:30 p.m. [1].
Can I submit written comments on the Long Mott construction permit?
Yes, for the mandatory hearing record. Comments and questions must reach the NRC's designated email address by October 6, 2026; the staff says it will not consider anything sent another way or after that date [1].
Can the public intervene in the Long Mott proceeding at the September hearing?
No. The notice says the hearing is not an opportunity to request a contested hearing [1]. That window closed August 11, 2025, and San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper was admitted as a party in January 2026 [5, 7].
Does the NRC mandatory hearing decide whether Long Mott gets a permit?
Not under the new process. The June 2026 policy statement turns the hearing into an early forum for information and public input rather than a check on the staff's finished review, and the April rule removed the environmental findings a presiding officer had to make [2, 3].
How big is the Long Mott Generating Station?
The application covers an 800 megawatts-thermal plant made up of four X-energy Xe-100 high-temperature gas-cooled reactors next to Dow's Seadrift Operations site [1, 4, 10].

Note on sourcing

This report rests on the NRC's Federal Register notices and on Nuclear News reporting on the contested proceeding. The status of the admitted financial-qualifications contention is described as Nuclear News reported it in February and as the Licensing Board's notice records it; this report does not draw on the Commission's ruling on Long Mott Energy's appeal of LBP-26-1, which the Commission scheduled for affirmation on August 7. The November target for the staff's safety review is Nuclear News's account of the NRC schedule, not a date stated in the hearing notice. The hearing notice's bracketed heading gives the docket as 05-614; its text and the earlier notices use 50-614. Neither Long Mott Energy nor San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper had made a public statement on the September 22 hearing in the record as of publication.

Sources

  1. Long Mott Energy, LLC; Long Mott Generating Station; Notice of Hearing, 91 FR 53900 (FR Doc. 2026-16975)Federal Register (Nuclear Regulatory Commission), August 20, 2026 · federalregister.gov
  2. Policy Statement on Mandatory Hearings for Reactor Licensing, 91 FR 34661 (FR Doc. 2026-11451)Federal Register (Nuclear Regulatory Commission), June 8, 2026 · federalregister.gov
  3. Increased Flexibility in the Mandatory Hearing Process, final rule, 91 FR 20063 (FR Doc. 2026-07301), RIN 3150-AL59Federal Register (Nuclear Regulatory Commission), April 15, 2026 · federalregister.gov
  4. Long Mott Energy, LLC; Long Mott Generating Station; Environmental Assessment, Finding of No Significant Impact, and Exemptions, 91 FR 29515 (FR Doc. 2026-10073)Federal Register (Nuclear Regulatory Commission), May 20, 2026 · federalregister.gov
  5. Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel; In the Matter of Long Mott Energy, LLC (Long Mott Generating Station); Memorandum and Order (Notice of Hearing), 91 FR 8284 (FR Doc. 2026-03415)Federal Register (Nuclear Regulatory Commission), February 20, 2026 · federalregister.gov
  6. Sunshine Act Meetings, week of August 3, 2026, 91 FR 51184 (FR Doc. 2026-16152)Federal Register (Nuclear Regulatory Commission), August 7, 2026 · federalregister.gov
  7. Long Mott Energy, LLC.; Long Mott Generating Station; Construction Permit Application, 90 FR 24428 (FR Doc. 2025-10505)Federal Register (Nuclear Regulatory Commission), June 10, 2025 · federalregister.gov
  8. Tennessee Valley Authority; Clinch River Nuclear Site, Unit 1; Notice of Hearing, 91 FR 41664 (FR Doc. 2026-13662)Federal Register (Nuclear Regulatory Commission), July 7, 2026 · federalregister.gov
  9. Executive Order 14300, Ordering the Reform of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 90 FR 22587Federal Register (Executive Office of the President), May 29, 2025 · federalregister.gov
  10. NRC board to hear challenges to Dow's Long Mott applicationAmerican Nuclear Society (Nuclear News), February 20, 2026 · ans.org

Subject headings

Cross-references

Other register entries filed under the same subject headings.

  1. No. 0006 · Authorization · 3 shared headingsNRC proposes reactor licensing overhaul with 40-year renewals and smaller emergency zones, 91 FR 44560
  2. No. 0027 · Rule · 2 shared headingsNRC renews AP1000 design certification by direct final rule, adopting Revision 20, 91 FR 65091
  3. No. 0019 · Report · 2 shared headingsNRC notices NextEra-Dominion application for indirect transfer of Dominion nuclear licenses, NRC-2026-4060