U.S. Fusion Energy Advances With Two Major Reports Demonstrating Public-Private Collaboration

October 2025 is emerging as a potential turning point for the U.S. fusion energy industry as both the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the bipartisan Commission on the Scaling of Fusion Energy (Commission) have released major reports focused on the urgent need for public-private partnerships to accelerate the development and growth of American fusion energy. 

DOE’s Office of Science has issued its Fusion Science & Technology Roadmap (Roadmap), incorporating input from over 600 scientists and engineers across the public and private sectors, national laboratories, universities, and international partners. The Roadmap establishes a three-pronged “Build-Innovate-Grow” framework focused on balancing collaboration among state and federal government entities and across private enterprise with a goal of fostering a competitive commercial landscape. 

The Roadmap also lays out 10 key actions and six core challenges over the coming decade to build toward deployment of fusion energy at scale in the U.S. by the mid-2030s. Key actions for industry and policymakers include using artificial intelligence (AI) models to solve technical challenges around sustained and controlled plasma burning, building out multiple scaled demonstration facilities, addressing supply chain constraints, and developing a path toward broader commercialization. Beyond the clear hurdles that remain with respect to generating and controlling sustained net-energy-positive fusion reactions, further challenges identified by the Roadmap include development of technologies to produce, handle, and recycle fuel materials like tritium as well as development of the balance-of-plant systems to convert energy output from the fusion engine into usable power delivered into the grid.

In parallel, the bipartisan Commission has released a report titled Fusion Forward: Powering America's Future (Fusion Forward Report), which emphasizes the growing competition between the United States and China to achieve dominance in harnessing this emerging energy technology, and the steps the United States must take in both public and private sectors to win this race. Although the United States continues to lead in scientific development, China has poured billions of dollars into the development of both physical infrastructure and scientific expertise to foster fusion energy buildout. 

To support fusion buildout in America, the Fusion Forward Report makes a number of recommendations, including a presidential Executive Order (EO) building on President Trump’s Unleashing American Energy EO by declaring fusion energy to be a national security priority, marshalling the resources of the government to support the construction of multiple industry-led fusion power demonstration plants in the United States before the end of 2028. The report sets a goal of $10 billion in investment for development of both fusion infrastructure and R&D. Finally, the report identifies a number of legal and regulatory challenges that need to be addressed to avoid unnecessary roadblocks to rapid deployment. 

In addition to the reports from DOE and the bipartisan Commission, the Clean Air Task Force (CATF) has also released a white paper detailing State Policy Options for Fusion Energy Deployment, outlining concrete steps that state policymakers can implement to prepare for fusion energy coming online at scale. Pulling on actions taken in individual states across the country to develop a toolkit for lawmakers, the CATF recommendations include updating state renewable energy portfolio standards and clean energy standards to include fusion, centralizing permitting and regulation of fusion energy in a single (adequately funded) agency, regulating byproducts to be treated as equivalent to similar X-ray materials, and creating a fast-track permitting pathway. 

Together, these reports build on recent successes for the fusion industry in building out the legal infrastructure for the development and deployment of fusion technology, first in the demonstration phase and then at scale. Recent advances include the 2023 decision of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to regulate fusion technology separately from fission reactors,[1] passage of the 2024 ADVANCE Act codifying separate regulatory treatment of fusion machines as particle accelerators and simplifying disposal of the limited waste materials, and the growth of the Agreement State framework delegating NRC regulatory authority to states (39 at latest count) that wish to facilitate fusion development and deployment locally. Nevertheless, as both new reports emphasize, critical challenges remain. 

Takeaways and Potential Opportunities and Challenges

Fusion energy is uniquely positioned at the nexus of both the opportunities and challenges of the 21st century. At a moment when the United States and China have entered a period of accelerating economic and technological competition over everything from AI to critical minerals, the prospect of near-term commercial-scale fusion energy is both shaped by and instrumental in shaping those broader trends. China’s dominant position in the supply chain for components critical to fusion technology, such as tungsten, vanadium, and rare earth elements, render the U.S. fusion industry vulnerable to a protracted trade war. At the same time, even as AI models may help fusion developers solve their remaining technical challenges, the prospect of stable, plentiful energy from commercial fusion machines could help technology companies meet their rapidly expanding energy demand to service data centers and AI infrastructure. 

Moreover, fusion plants seem like a nearly ideal fit for large load centers like factories and data centers. Fusion plants will have relatively small footprints and can be sited close to demand centers (unlike renewable energy, which is limited by resource availability, and without the safety concerns popularly associated with nuclear fission). This means that reliance on long-distance, high-voltage transmission lines, which have themselves become a major bottleneck for energy development, can be minimized. Even so, grid interconnection and queue timelines remain a critical choke point for fusion buildout. State and federal lawmakers should take steps to allow behind-the-meter sales to focus early fusion commercialization where demand is highest. And states and transmission providers should consider exempting fusion projects from multi-year queues, given the overarching desirability of clean, safe, stable baseload. In many states, there may be potential to reuse transmission and other infrastructure from closing fossil fuel plants to accelerate the siting of fusion facilities. 

The NRC is currently crafting a new regulatory framework under 10 CFR Part 30 for licensing the disposal of byproduct materials for approved fusion machine technologies. Final rules are expected in November and will provide another strong signal as to whether regulators are approaching fusion development with the necessary flexibility and creativity. 

One point of notable optimism for fusion development is the bipartisanship of support for the technology. Tax credits for fusion that were championed by the Biden administration in the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, such as 45Y and 48E credits, were all retained by the Trump administration in its One Big Beautiful Bill Act, standing in contrast to other forms of clean energy. Although competition with China may pose challenges to supply chains and create risk of intellectual property theft, as seen in the AI field, this may nevertheless help to preserve broad government support domestically through a period when the emerging private sector needs broad, stable, and innovative regulatory, financial, and scientific support. 

Most fusion projects also are unlikely to require review under the National Environmental Policy Act unless they are situated on federal land or heavily reliant on federal funding or loan guarantees. Nevertheless, reducing the overall timeline for other state and federal environmental permits remains a critical unresolved issue. States seeking to become innovation hubs for this potentially game-changing technology would be well advised to think proactively about how to implement smooth, rapid permitting regimes going forward. 

[1] See, e.g., NRC Decision Separates Fusion Energy Regulation from Nuclear Fission.