S.4495 - Reactors at Risk Act of 2026
S.4495 was introduced on May 12, 2026 by Senator Ed Markey (D-MA).It is currently pending before the Senate Committee on Armed Services.
Related legislation:
Bill Summary: S. 4495 would require the Secretary of Defense and the Under Secretary of Energy for Nuclear Security to jointly submit to the appropriate committees of Congress, within 120 days of enactment, a report assessing the dangers posed by nuclear reactors located in areas that have experienced, or might experience, armed conflict. The report must assess the threats such reactors pose to U.S. national security, to the interests of U.S. allies and partners, and to the safety and security of civilian populations. Its scope expressly covers reactors in regions that have experienced armed conflict in the preceding 25 years, including Russia’s attacks on Ukraine and conflict in the Middle East, “including between Israel and Iran,” as well as reactors in areas that are contested or likely to see conflict during the reactors’ lifespan, and in regions implicated in a range of potential future conflicts. The bill further directs an assessment of steps the United States and its partners can take to prevent, prepare for, and mitigate these risks. The report is to be submitted in unclassified form but may include a classified annex.
Context: Nuclear reactors situated in conflict zones present acute and well-documented risks: a strike on, or loss of control over, a reactor can cause radiological release with global consequences. The dangers are not hypothetical. Russia’s seizure of operations around Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia plant, and strikes affecting nuclear infrastructure in the Middle East, have repeatedly raised the prospect of a wartime radiological catastrophe.
S. 4495-mandated assessment of reactors in the Middle East would reach Israel’s heavy-water reactor at the Negev Nuclear Research Center near Dimona. That facility is widely assessed to be the production site for the fissile material underpinning Israel’s nuclear weapons, a program Israel has never declared. Israel is not a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, does not place the Dimona reactor under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards, and maintains a longstanding policy of nuclear opacity under which it neither confirms nor denies possessing nuclear weapons. The United States has observed a parallel policy of declining to publicly acknowledge Israel’s nuclear arsenal. S.4495 would require, for the first time, an official U.S. government assessment of the dangers posed by a reactor targeted in the Israeli led war with Iran. S. 4495 punctures the decades-long silence that has exempted that facility from the scrutiny applied to comparable reactors elsewhere in the Middle East.
American Values Analysis: S.4495 reflects American values of transparency, nonproliferation, and the protection of civilians from the catastrophic harms of armed conflict. Requiring an even-handed, region-by-region accounting of reactor risk, one that does not carve out exceptions for partners, advances the principle that the same standards of candor and accountability should apply regardless of the state involved.
American Interest Analysis: The bill advances American interests. A radiological incident at a reactor in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, or the Indo-Pacific would endanger U.S. forces and citizens, destabilize the global economy, and could draw the United States more deeply into conflict. A clear-eyed assessment is required for effective risk mitigation. Sustained U.S. silence regarding Israel’s Dimona reactor also carries costs. It weakens the credibility of the nonproliferation regime the United States asks other states to uphold and hands adversaries a charge of hypocrisy.
A New Policy’s Recommendation: SUPPORT
A New Policy supports S.4495 and welcomes a candid accounting of the dangers posed by nuclear reactors in conflict-prone regions. The bill’s value lies not only in addressing well-recognized risks in Ukraine and East Asia, but in subjecting Israel’s undeclared and unsafeguarded Dimona reactor to the same scrutiny, a long-overdue step toward consistency in U.S. nonproliferation policy.
For more information please contact: Josh Paul, (202) 770-0055, info@anewpolicy.org
