Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2662 actions· ✨ 89 recent

The UK laid the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) (Amendment) Regulations 2026 (SI 2026/543) before Parliament on 19 May 2026; it came into force on 20 May 2026. The instrument inserts a new Chapter 4KA (regulations 46Z23A-46Z23G) into the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, prohibiting the import into the UK of uranium (HS 2844.10/2844.20/2844.30) that originates in or is consigned from Russia, the direct or indirect acquisition of Russian-origin or Russia-located uranium, and the supply or delivery of uranium from Russia to a third country — plus associated technical assistance, financial services/funds, and brokering services. Each prohibition carries a criminal offence with a reasonable-cause-to- suspect defence, subject to narrow exceptions and licensing grounds at regulations 16-19 of the amending instrument. The same instrument separately extends the existing ban on imports of relevant (2709-origin) Russian crude to cover oil products refined from that crude in a third country (new regulations 46Z9F-46Z9I).

President Trump issued five Presidential Determinations on 20 April 2026 under Section 303 of the Defense Production Act of 1950 (50 U.S.C. § 4533), invoking the authority granted by Executive Order 14156 (Declaring a National Energy Emergency, signed 20 January 2025). The five determinations cover: (1) domestic petroleum production, refining, and logistics; (2) large-scale energy and energy-related infrastructure development, manufacturing, and deployment; (3) natural gas transmission, processing, storage, and LNG capacity; (4) coal supply chains and baseload power generation; (5) grid infrastructure, equipment, and supply chain. Each determination authorises the relevant Cabinet Secretary (primarily Energy) to use DPA §303 powers — direct loans, loan guarantees, purchase commitments, and equity investments — to expand domestic capacity in the named category.

DOE's Loan Programs Office concurrently finalized a conditional loan commitment and financial close on a USD 1 billion interest-bearing loan to Constellation Energy Generation, LLC, funded under the newly created Energy Dominance Financing Program, to help restart the 835 MW Crane Clean Energy Center (formerly Three Mile Island Unit 1) on the Susquehanna River in Londonderry Township, Pennsylvania. The reactor shut down in 2019 for market reasons (not safety) and was never fully decommissioned; restart is pending NRC licensing approval and is expected to power roughly 800,000 Mid-Atlantic homes, supporting domestic manufacturing and AI-datacenter power demand. A Pennsylvania Building & Construction Trades Council economic-impact study cited in the DOE release estimates ~3,400 direct/indirect jobs, over USD 16 billion in state GDP, and more than USD 3 billion in state/federal tax revenue over the project life.

The Texas Energy Fund (TxEF), administered by the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT), finalized a USD 1.12 billion low-interest (3%) 20-year state loan to Competitive Power Ventures (CPV) to fund 60% of the USD 1.88 billion cost of the CPV Basin Ranch Energy Center, a 1,350 MW combined-cycle natural-gas plant in Ward County (Permian Basin), Texas. The loan term runs 28 October 2025 to 28 October 2045; the plant is expected online in 2029 in the ERCOT West Load Zone and is explicitly framed by the state as capacity to serve West Texas AI/data-center electricity demand. This is the fifth loan finalized under TxEF's In-ERCOT Generation Loan Program and the largest single project financed under it to date, taking cumulative TxEF-backed capacity above 3,100 MW.

China's Ministry of Finance, General Administration of Customs and State Taxation Administration jointly issued Announcement 2025 No. 10, restructuring VAT refund support across the power-generation sector effective 1 November 2025. Offshore wind power producers gain a new 50% immediate VAT refund running through 31 December 2027, while the prior immediate-refund policy for onshore wind power (in force since 2015 under Cai Shui [2015] No. 74) is repealed outright. Nuclear plants approved but not yet commercially operating as of 31 October 2025 receive a 50% collected-then-refunded VAT rebate for ten years from first commercial operation, but nuclear projects approved after 1 November 2025 receive no VAT refund at all. The measure reallocates state fiscal support within China's power sector toward offshore wind and legacy-pipeline nuclear capacity while withdrawing it from onshore wind and future nuclear approvals.

Presidential Decree No. 593 of 25 August 2025 amends the standing schedule of foreign-owned Russian assets under "temporary management" (established by Decree No. 302 of 25 April 2023), adding as item 44 the 314,949 thousand ordinary shares of JSC Chelyabenergoremont held by Fortum Holding B.V. (the Dutch holding vehicle of Finnish state-controlled utility Fortum), transferring control to Rosimushchestvo (Federal Agency for State Property Management). Fortum was the sole shareholder, so the decree effectively nationalises the entire company — a 70-year-old turbine and boiler-equipment maintenance and repair service provider for power plants, with reported 2023 revenue of RUB 2.35bn. The decree entered into force on its date of official publication and is one of a running series of company-specific amendments to Decree 302 following Fortum's 2022-23 exit announcement and the earlier seizure of its main generation subsidiary Fortum Russia B.V. (renamed Fora Energy) and of Unipro.

Government of Russia Resolution No. 1544, signed by Prime Minister Mishustin on 14 November 2024 and published 15 November 2024, amends Resolution No. 313 of 9 March 2022 (the framework counter-sanctions list of goods restricted for export to "unfriendly" jurisdictions) by adding HS code 2844 20 — uranium enriched in U-235 and its compounds — to Annex 2. The amendment imposes a temporary export ban on enriched uranium to the United States and to legal entities incorporated in US jurisdiction, in force from 16 November 2024 through 31 December 2025. Exports are permitted only under one-off licences issued by the Russian Federal Service for Technical and Export Control (FSTEC). The measure is an explicit tit-for-tat response to the US Prohibiting Russian Uranium Imports Act (Public Law 118-50, 13 May 2024).

Japan's Act on the Promotion of Supply and Utilization of Low-Carbon Hydrogen and its Derivatives for a Smooth Transition to a Decarbonized, Growth-Oriented Economic Structure (the Hydrogen Society Promotion Act) was enacted by the Diet on 17 May 2024, promulgated 24 May 2024, and came into force on 23 October 2024. It is Japan's first legislation specifically targeting hydrogen. The Act establishes a 15-year price-gap Contract-for-Difference (CfD) subsidy backstopping the delivered cost of certified low-carbon hydrogen, ammonia, synthetic methane and synthetic fuels supplied to Japan, plus a "Hub Support" capex grant for shared port/pipeline/storage infrastructure. METI is the competent authority and JOGMEC the implementing agency. Total subsidy envelope is ~3 trillion yen (~USD 20bn) financed via GX Transition Bonds under the 2023 GX Promotion Act.

President Biden signed into law on 13 May 2024 the Prohibiting Russian Uranium Imports Act (Division H of the National Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, Public Law 118-50). The law bans imports to the United States of unirradiated low-enriched uranium (LEU) produced in Russia or by Russian state entities, effective immediately, with a waiver mechanism allowing the Department of Energy to grant case-by-case exceptions through 2027 where no alternative supply is available. The law also authorised up to $2.72B to support US uranium enrichment capacity via CENTRUS and allied enrichment partnerships.

On 21 February 2024, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed Presidential Decree DP-37 approving the 2024 State Program for the Implementation of the "Uzbekistan-2030" Strategy under the slogan "Year of Support for Youth and Business". The decree converts the parent Uzbekistan-2030 doctrine (DP-158 of 11 September 2023) into binding annual execution targets covering SOE privatisation and IPO programmes (Navoi MMC, Almalyk MMC, Uzbekistan National Investment Fund), industrial localisation, sectoral investment lines, "green economy" and water-management benchmarks, and youth-business support measures. DP-37 functions as the master annual operationalisation instrument for Uzbekistan's 2024 industrial and investment policy stack, anchoring the downstream subsoil recodification (LRU-987, Oct 2024) and critical-minerals national programme (March 2025).

The German Federal Cabinet adopted the Fortschreibung (update) of the 2020 Nationale Wasserstoffstrategie on 26 July 2023, led by BMWK (Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action). The update doubles Germany's domestic electrolyser-capacity target from 5 GW to at least 10 GW by 2030, sets a hydrogen-demand target of 95–130 TWh/year by 2030 (rising to 360–500 TWh by 2045), and lays out a four-pillar framework covering supply (domestic + import diversification), infrastructure (H2-Kernnetz core network), demand (industrial decarbonisation + heavy-mobility), and the action framework (€18 bn KTF allocation, IPCEI Hy2Tech/Hy2Use, H2Global double-auction import mechanism, Klimaschutzverträge/carbon contracts for difference). It is the parent authority for subsequent instruments including the H2-Beschleunigungsgesetz and the Oct 2024 Bundesnetzagentur approval of the Wasserstoff-Kernnetz.