The Break Through

Large infrastructure projects are governed by distributed decision systems: configurations in which multiple independent stakeholders—each with distinct mandates, evaluation frameworks, and definitions of acceptable risk—must simultaneously reach acceptable outcomes within their own domains. No single actor controls the result. No single intervention is sufficient to produce success.

Under the direction of Executive Order 14300, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is reconsidering one of the foundational principles of the federal radiation protection system: that radiation exposures and releases be maintained “as low as is reasonably achievable,” commonly known as ALARA. The Commission has proposed replacing ALARA with a “graded approach to dose management” and revising several numerical standards governing radioactive effluents.

Washington, DC — July 24, 2026 — The Breakthrough Institute endorsed the Wildfire Emissions Prevention Act (WEPA) of 2026 led by a bipartisan group of Senators. This legislation would simplify regulatory compliance for states conducting prescribed burns. These and other proactive fuel reduction treatments aim to reduce wildfire intensity and severity. The bill would classify prescribed burns as exception events, excluding smoke from these wildfire mitigation efforts from Clean Air Act calculations.

Jul 22, 2026 Share Share via Twitter Share via Facebook Share via Email California’s wildfire architecture is breaking on three sides at once. Electricity rates have risen 70 to 80 percent since 2018, driven in large part by utility wildfire mitigation and insurance that ratepayers now finance directly. The FAIR Plan—the state’s insurer of last resort—has nearly quintupled in policy count and dollar exposure over the same period.

Congress designed the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) in an era of breakneck federal infrastructure development. But now America struggles to build. The NHPA Section 106 consultation framework functions well for routine undertakings. But it scales poorly for large, multi-state transmission lines, pipelines, and other linear infrastructure. This paper argues that the most persistent challenges in Section 106 review arise from three structural features of the current system.

Evaluating Deployment, Investment, and Impact in America's Clean Energy Future Jul 1, 2026 Share Share via Twitter Share via Facebook Share via Email This interactive tool from The Breakthrough Institute brings together two distinct analyses of nuclear energy in the United States. The Map and Dashboard tabs visualize results from a 2022 modeling study of advanced nuclear deployment through 2050.

Washington, DC, June 25, 2026 — Today, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Monsanto in Monsanto Co. v. Durnell, holding that federal pesticide law preempts state-law failure-to-warn claims that would require a cancer warning on Roundup labels beyond what the Environmental Protection Agency has required.

How quickly the United States can deploy a new generation of advanced nuclear reactors will depend in large part on whether the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) can license them efficiently and at scale. The NRC's proposed "Part 57" rule is designed to do exactly that—making licensing faster, more standardized, and more repeatable by scaling regulatory requirements to the consequences a reactor can actually pose.

A comprehensive deal to reform federal permitting will likely include changes to Clean Water Act (CWA) Section 401. Section 401 grants states and Tribes authority to certify, block, or impose conditions on federally permitted activities that may result in a discharge into state or Tribal waters. The political and policy dynamics surrounding Section 401 reform are complicated. In 2016, New York state began to use Section 401 to block gas pipelines on climate change grounds.

The central challenge facing nuclear regulation today is an implementation and decision-architecture problem. Congress has already provided substantial direction to modernize the NRC through legislation, including NEIMA and the ADVANCE Act, and the NRC has begun to make visible progress. But modernization will ultimately be judged by implementation.