In a policy that has already encountered resistance, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is looking to replace the “as low as reasonably achievable” (ALARA) principle with “clearer, more objective” rules for radiation protection, the agency said Wednesday.
ALARA is the principle that everything reasonably possible should be done to lower radiation exposure. This principle is a legal mandate for nuclear power plant operators. ALARA is built on the Linear No-Threshold (LNT) model, which is a safety standard that assumes any dose of ionizing radiation, no matter how low the dosage is, increases cancer risk proportionally.
The Wednesday proposed rulemaking would establish a more risk-informed and performance-based framework for radiation protection, NRC said in a press release. NRC hopes to do this by adopting a graded approach to dose management based on risk and operational circumstances and expanding options for managing occupational radiation exposure, NRC said.
Additionally, the rule would provide licensees greater flexibility to use updated methods to analyze radiation doses for workers and the public. The changes would also allow caregivers for patients’ receiving radioactive material treatments to voluntarily receive higher doses.
“The revisions to the NRC’s Standards for Protection Against Radiation reflect the agency’s reconsideration of its use of the linear no-threshold (LNT) model for assessing health effects from radiation exposure and its application of the “as low as is reasonably achievable” (ALARA) principle that is predicated on LNT,” according to the pre-published Federal Register notice of the rulemaking.
The reconsideration of ALARA and LNT in NRC regulations has caused uncertainties among various figures. In January, former Department of Energy official Kathy Huff said in an analysis that NRC’s “weakening” radiation protection standards were not supported by current research and could harm people, particularly children and women. Huff recommends the agency just stick with the longstanding LNT model.
Former Assistant Director for National Security in the White House Office of Science and Technology Frank von Hippel said in a May blog article that the Donald Trump White House’s proposed changes to radiation protection standards are “reckless” and will have long-term consequences on public safety. Executive Order 14300 from May 2025 ordered NRC to reconsider the reliance on the LNT model and ALARA principle.
NRC Chair Ho Nieh told reporters in a Wednesday media roundtable attended by Exchange Monitor the proposed rulemaking clarifies the framework for ALARA.
“We are moving away from an open-ended subjective framework that’s currently as low as reasonably achievable requirements in our rules, and we are moving towards something that provides greater clarity in how our licensees and applicants meet radiation protection standards below the regulatory limit,” Nieh said.
Nieh argued the change would not lower the bar on the agency’s safety standards in regarding radiation protection, with dose limits for the public and workers not being affected by it. He also said consider public input into consideration.
When asked about the possible public perception of the rulemaking, Nieh said that there was a lot of build-up for it, but “didn’t see what all of the hype was all about,” he said. NRC did not “erase the entire rulebook on radiation protection,” and instead gave it more structure, Nieh said
“We are removing the ambiguity out of our regulations,” Nieh said.