Federal regulators are looking at easing restrictions on radiation exposure at the nation’s nuclear power plants.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, an independent agency aimed at ensuring the safe use of radioactive materials, proposed Wednesday eliminating a standard to keep radiation exposure “as low as is reasonably achievable,” also called ALARA.
ALARA is based on the linear no-threshold model, which presumes that any dose of radiation carries a proportional risk of harm.
The commission said in a press release that the proposal would introduce changes, including a graded approach to radiation dose management “based on risk and operational circumstances” and expanding options for managing workplace radiation exposure.
“We’re raising the standard for regulatory clarity, not lowering the standard for safety,” Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Ho K. Nieh said in a statement. “Our radiation dose limits remain unchanged—what we’re eliminating is unnecessary ambiguity.”
The Independent has reached out to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for comment.
The changes could save the nuclear industry about $9.53 million a year, according to documents from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission obtained by The Hill.
Edwin Lyman, a physicist and nuclear safety advocate at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told Reuters, “In eliminating its use of the ALARA principle, the agency's sweeping new proposed rule would allow nuclear facility workers and the general public to be exposed to higher levels of cancer-causing radiation just to save the nuclear industry money."
"This will only increase the disease burden at a time when cancer rates are already rising among younger people," Lyman said.
The number of new cancer cases increased among people under age 50 from 2010 through 2019, according to researchers at the National Institutes of Health.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission noted in documents that the proposal would address part of President Donald Trump’s executive order to reform the agency.
Trump ordered in May 2025 that the commission “adopt science-based radiation limits.”
The order specifically called for reconsidering the commission’s reliance on the linear no-threshold model, describing it as “flawed.”
