As Trump boosts nuclear power, regulators seek to eliminate a
longstanding radiation safety practice
[July 27, 2026]
By JENNIFER McDERMOTT
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is proposing to eliminate a
foundational safety principle that has for 50 years minimized the
radiation people in the United States are exposed to and that has been
adopted around the world.
Currently, facilities such as nuclear plants, hospitals or academic
institutions that use radioactive materials must ensure radiation
exposures are kept “as low as reasonably achievable” — the ALARA
principle. The NRC proposal would abandon that philosophy while keeping
a separate standard on maximum radiation exposure.
The two standards have worked together in radiation safety. Dose limits
set the maximum amount of radiation the public and radiation workers can
be exposed to, while ALARA kept radiation exposure as low as practical
under those limits. Research shows radiation exposure increases a
person’s chance of getting cancer, a risk that increases as the dose
increases.
The dose limits are not changing. But the NRC, which regulates civilian
nuclear energy technologies and radioactive materials, now wants to
replace ALARA with a “graded approach” that includes several actions
facilities must take depending on the potential dose of radiation to
workers. More rigorous radiation protection measures would be required
when approaching dose limits to ensure they aren't exceeded.
This comes as President Donald Trump attempts to quadruple domestic
nuclear energy production because of surging electricity demand amid a
data center and artificial intelligence boom. Reforming the NRC is one
way Trump is trying to speed up nuclear reactor development. He
instructed the federal agency in an executive order last year to “ adopt
science-based radiation limits.”
The Energy Department, which oversees national energy policies, has
already stopped using ALARA. The NRC expects to finalize its radiation
protection regulations in the coming months.
NRC Chairman Ho Nieh said the commission is not lowering the bar on
safety.
“We’re just removing the ambiguity,” he said in a call with reporters.
“But the standard for exposure to workers and the public, those are not
changing. We’re just putting in place greater clarification.”
Nieh doesn't expect major changes within the nation's existing fleet of
large, traditional reactors. But companies designing and building new,
smaller reactors could move faster with a clearer picture of the
radiation protection requirements, he said.
Without ALARA, could radiation doses creep closer to the limits?
The NRC said radiation exposure limits are set well below levels
associated with health effects, and it expects remaining standards and
industry practices to keep radiation doses far below the limits. There's
incentive to do so — it's more expensive and time-consuming to work in
areas with higher radiation because access must be restricted and more
surveys are required.
The nuclear industry's trade association agrees with the NRC.
“We will always continue to look at what can we do to reduce the dose to
workers, and maintain our doses to the off-site public as low as
possible,” said Doug True, chief nuclear officer at the Nuclear Energy
Institute. “It’s not like we’re just going to throw open the doors and
let everything run up to the limits.”
ALARA created a “moving target” for regulation, said Justin Friedman, a
nuclear energy consultant who previously spent three decades at the U.S.
Department of State. Getting rid of the rule would allow NRC scientists
to make more rational decisions about appropriate levels of manageable
risk, he added.
Some experts question the wisdom of eliminating ALARA
Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned
Scientists, cautions that some parts of the NRC proposal could raise
permissible radiation doses in certain cases, while still staying below
the cap. Lyman highlighted a proposed revision to radionuclide emissions
standards, in particular.
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Cooling tower three with one and two in the background operate at
the nuclear reactor facility at the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric
Generating Plant, May 31, 2024, in Waynesboro, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike
Stewart, File)
Radiation exposure to the general public is limited to 100 millirem
per year. A typical dose of radiation from a chest X-ray is 10
millirem.
The NRC wants to increase its radionuclide emissions standards from
a conservative 10 millirem per year dose to 25 millirem per year,
based on a hypothetical person living in a house at the property
line for a nuclear plant.
The NRC says actual doses to the public would remain far lower
because, in reality, people live farther from nuclear sites and
benefit from dispersion in air and water.
The NRC should improve, rather than eliminate, ALARA, Lyman said, to
protect the public and workers. ALARA has become a political target
because some people mistakenly believe radiation exposures have to
be as low as possible no matter the cost, Lyman said. In reality, it
allows tradeoffs.
Katy Huff, a former U.S. assistant secretary for nuclear energy,
said in some cases, the requirement may be challenging to regulate.
Additional clarity would improve the regulatory environment without
harming the public, added Huff, a professor and department chair at
the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
However, Huff said, she thought the NRC was going to clarify what
reasonable means in ALARA without scrapping it. She said she’s open
to being convinced the graded approach will be just as effective.
Radiation protection expert says proposal is a mixed bag
The National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements,
chartered by Congress to provide independent scientific guidance,
has not formally weighed in yet. Council president Kathryn Higley
said she personally likes some things in the 180-page document and
thinks others are problematic.
The NRC should look at the whole picture for managing risk, she
said. For instance, if a worker at a nuclear power plant were to
enter an area where airborne radioactive materials are present, in
keeping with ALARA, they might wear full personal protective
equipment with respirators, said Higley, professor emeritus at
Oregon State University. That makes them move slower, potentially
subjecting them to heat stress that could hurt them more than a low
dose of radioactivity, she said.
A concern with the proposal, Higley said, is that it maintains the
current occupational dose limit for adult radiation workers at 5 rem,
or 5,000 millirem, per year. With ALARA in place, the average dose
to workers has been well below that cap.
The International Commission on Radiological Protection recommends
an occupational dose of 2 rem per year on average. The NRC
previously found it wasn't justified to match that, because workers
were exposed to less than that and changing regulations is costly.
Higley said the U.S. may need to align with the international
community if ALARA is going away.
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