With the public comment period ending for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) radiation standards rulemaking, NRC Chair Ho Nieh is making the case for moving away from “as low as reasonably achievable,” or ALARA in an opinion column for Exchange Monitor.
The rulemaking, part of a series of changes mandated by Executive Order 14300, would move away from the ALARA requirement and seek a regulatory framework that would manage the dose limits, according to NRC.
ALARA embraces the principle that everything should be reasonably done to lower radiation exposure. It is based on the Linear No Threshold (LNT) model, which is a radiation dose-model that assumes that any radiation exposure carries some proportional risk.
Published July 15 in the Federal Register, the rulemaking has garnered a lot of attention from the public. According to the proposed rule’s Federal Register notice, over 2,301 comments were submitted. Many environmental and labor groups urged people to comment on the rulemaking as they said that proposed changes were inherently dangerous and would raise radiation exposure limits to workers and the general public.
Nieh, who has previously defended the rulemaking, said in his recent opinion piece that the pivot from ALARA will not lower NRC’s oversight on radiation standards, but will provide more clarity on the standards. Through the proposed rulemaking, Nieh said NRC plans to provide clearer requirements and move away from the regulatory uncertainty created by the subjectivity under the ALARA principle.
Chairman Nieh’s full column defending the revised radiation standards is available now on the Exchange Monitor website and is also being published in Radwaste & Materials Monitor.