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Amy Roma

Partner

Washington, D.C.

There are very few people who can take a nuclear or fusion project from concept to deployment. Amy is one of them.

She represents leading and emerging nuclear market participants — including reactor developers, industrial energy users, utilities, investors, and government stakeholders — on high-stakes commercialization strategy and strategic engagement with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Department of Energy (DOE). Amy guides complex regulatory approvals, licensing proceedings, compliance matters, and investigations involving advanced reactors, small modular reactors (SMRs), microreactors, fusion systems, fuel cycle facilities, and space and defense nuclear applications.

Her practice is centered on the commercialization of first-of-a-kind energy technologies, advising companies, investors, and strategic partners on developing innovative regulatory pathways and durable commercial structures that enable deployment. She works with clients to design licensing and business strategies in parallel — aligning regulatory approvals, capital formation, investment structuring, offtake arrangements, and supply chain frameworks to bring advanced nuclear and fusion projects to market.

She also advises on strategic investments in new and existing nuclear projects, with particular focus on the unique business considerations that define the sector, including nuclear liability regimes, export controls, foreign ownership and control, and the evolving deployment landscape. Her work frequently sits at the intersection of nuclear energy with AI infrastructure, industrial decarbonization, space, and defense applications.

Recognized by the Financial Times as one of the Most Innovative Lawyers in Technology and among the top 10 Most Innovative Lawyers in North America, Amy is a trusted voice in global energy innovation. She maintains deep working relationships across DOE, NRC, DoD, State, Commerce, and NASA, and has testified multiple times before the U.S. Congress. Amy is frequently called upon to address issues of grid reliability, decarbonization, national security, and advanced energy deployment, and is consistently ranked by Chambers USA and Chambers Global for Energy: Nuclear (Regulatory & Litigation).

Amy is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia and Massachusetts and serves as a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center.

  • She is widely recognized as one of the world’s leading experts in nuclear energy and fusion regulation, shaping the commercial strategies that enable both the existing fleet and next-generation projects to be financed, licensed, and built.

    Amy advises across the full spectrum of nuclear regulatory matters, and has led NRC and Agreement State licensing efforts on some of the most significant projects the nuclear industry has seen over the past 20 years. Her work spans the full nuclear landscape—from large-scale LWRs to SMRs, advanced and microreactors, fusion systems, and the fuel cycle—for traditional power, but also extending into applications across data centers, industrial co-location, space, maritime, defense, and medical and industrial uses of radioactive materials. She also advises on international nuclear projects, and exports from the United States.

    She leads as nuclear regulatory counsel—but that’s just the starting point. She brings that experience into the boardroom and C-suite, integrating regulatory strategy with the broader commercial architecture of a project and supporting teams across capital formation, financing and offtake, project development and execution, M&A, supply chain, and government engagement.

    She doesn’t just help clients get projects approved—she helps structure them to get financed, built, and scaled. Across the full project lifecycle, she works with developers, owners and operators, offtakers, investors, and governments to move projects from first-of-a-kind commercialization to fleetwide deployment. She is brought in when the path is complex or unclear—to de-risk execution, unlock regulatory pathways, and move projects forward.

    Amy structures projects to succeed in the real world—aligning licensing strategy with capital formation, offtake, and supply chain so projects are not just licensable, but financeable and executable.

    Chambers-ranked in nuclear, she was named by the Financial Times as one of the “Top 10 Most Innovative Lawyers in North America” and the “Most Innovative Lawyer in Technology.”

    Amy is also an active humanitarian who brings that same innovative, mission-oriented mindset to large-scale, high-impact pro bono efforts, including coordinating the use of the New England Patriots team aircraft to secure and transport nearly two million masks at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and subsequently organizing the importation of more than two billion pieces of PPE for states and hospital systems.

    She serves as a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center and as a Senior Fellow in Nuclear at the Tulane University Energy Law & Policy Center, and holds an MBA in Finance from the University of Virginia.

    • Advise reactor developers on NRC licensing strategies and applications for large light-water reactors (LWRs), small modular and advanced reactors, and microreactors, including first-of-a-kind deployment pathways. Developed the business plan and execution strategy for a leading advanced reactor project in the United States and advised a foreign reactor project on its first-of-a-kind LWR deployment.
    • Advise companies, investors, and strategic partners on nuclear and fusion transactions, including license transfers, export controls, nuclear liability regimes, contracting structures, government support mechanisms, and domestic and global deployment landscapes.
    • Counsel clients on comprehensive strategies to support the mass manufacturing and deployment of microreactors and fusion machines, integrating regulatory approvals, supply chain structuring, capital formation, and commercialization pathways.
    • Counsel fusion companies on commercialization strategy, including radioactive materials licensing, regulatory positioning, stakeholder engagement, supply chain structuring, and the parallel development of regulatory and business frameworks.
    • Guide fuel cycle companies through NRC licensing and commercialization of enrichment, fuel fabrication, recycling/reprocessing, storage, and disposal facilities, and advise across all stages of the fuel cycle — mining, milling, enrichment, fabrication, reprocessing/recycling, and spent fuel and low-level waste storage and disposal.
    • Advise on innovative uses of nuclear reactors, including space-based power systems, maritime power and propulsion, and mobile reactor deployments.
    • Prepare and manage complex NRC and Agreement State license transfers and regulatory approvals, having submitted more than 1,000 license transfer applications nationwide.
    • Advise on radiopharmaceutical licensing, compliance, and commercialization matters.
    • Represent operating nuclear facilities in complex NRC compliance and enforcement matters, including investigations, Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), and Nuclear Safety Culture/Safety Conscious Work Environment issues.