A sign warning of radioactive materials is seen on a fence outside Indian Point Energy Center in Buchanan, N.Y., just days before it closed in 2021. The Trump administration is seeking to overhaul nuclear safety rules to aid a nuclear revival.
Seth Wenig/AP
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The NRC is preparing to change a foundational rule designed to minimize radiation exposure. The update is part of President Trump's expansive changes to nuclear oversight, as his administration seeks to revive nuclear energy to power data centers for artificial intelligence.
Under a new proposed rule, the agency is eliminating a 50-year-old standard known as "As Low As Reasonably Achievable" (ALARA), which requires the nuclear industry to drive radiation exposure for workers and the public below the stated limits where possible. The new rule also creates a carveout for some workers to get higher exposures to radiation in special circumstances.
For some, the elimination of ALARA is overdue. "Keeping doses as low as reasonably achievable was a fair idea," said Emily Caffrey, a radiation health physicist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. But in practice, the standard forced companies to take increasingly stringent radiation protection measures. It also created ambiguity, Caffrey said, "because what's 'reasonable' to one person isn't reasonable to another person."
But others warn that the change could lay the groundwork for higher radiation exposures.
"Removing it would remove that incentive for these companies to continue to maintain the practices that protected their workers and the public," said Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a watchdog group.
The public comment period for the new rule ends Aug. 31. It could go into effect early next year.
Since shortly after the dawn of the nuclear age, scientists have been aware of the risks of radiation exposure, and decades of data makes it clear.
"At high radiation doses, nobody's really arguing radiation causes cancer," said David Brenner, director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University. High doses of radiation damage DNA and can cause mutations that lead to cancer. But when the dose is low, it's much harder to determine risk because about 40% of the U.S. population develops cancer at some point in their lifetime.
"As you go down in dose, what you're looking for is a very small increase in cancer risk over a very large background," Brenner said. "That's what makes it really, really hard."
For the past 50 years or so, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has dealt with this uncertainty by requiring that the nuclear industry adhere to ALARA and keep radiation exposure as low as possible.
Then last May, President Trump signed an executive order calling for a wholesale overhaul of nuclear regulations. The order specifically called out ALARA, claiming the principle was a "flawed" understanding of radiation risks.
The NRC decided not to change its scientific model of radiation risk, known as the Linear No Threshold model, but it has proposed eliminating ALARA.
Speaking this week on the Federal News Network, NRC Chairman Ho Nieh said that ALARA is no longer working.
To explain why, he drew a comparison to speed limits. A road's speed limit might be 55 miles per hour, but "imagine if there's another rule that says you have to drive as slow as reasonably achievable to be safer. Well, what does that mean? 50, 45, 25 miles per hour?"
