The nuclear industry and some lawmakers want to change that with action now.

Tennessee Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander, chairman of the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, said Thursday he will be leading a review of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s budget to see what changes could be made to allow construction of new reactors.

“We should be re-examining regulation of the nuclear reactor licensing process to make sure it’s not an undue burden,” Alexander said in an address to the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade association. “We don’t want to make it so hard and expensive to build and operate reactors that you can’t do it.”