The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has put forward a proposed change to its radiation protection rules that would remove the As Low as Reasonably Achievable, or ALARA, standard and substitute objective dose limits and a graded approach to dose management.
The proposal comes as part of a series of actions pushed by the Trump administration to accelerate licensing and cut costs for new reactors. President Donald Trump signed executive orders in 2025 directing faster permitting for reactors, an overhaul of the NRC, and coordination between the Energy and Defense departments to construct nuclear plants on federal lands. The administration has set an ambition to quadruple U.S. nuclear capacity by 2050 to meet rising electricity demand from data centers, electric vehicles and crypto-currencies.
The NRC said the rulemaking replaces ALARA with clearer, objective dose limits while allowing a graded approach to managing radiation doses based on risk and operational circumstances. The proposed framework would also permit plant operators to adopt "modern methods for evaluating radiation doses to workers and the public."
"This rulemaking is raising the bar on clarity in our regulations," Ho Nieh, the NRC chairman, told reporters. "It is not lowering the bar on our safety standards." Nieh added that he does not expect existing reactors to need significant changes if the rule is finalized, but he argued the change could ease and speed the development of new reactor designs. "Now they have a very clear picture of what the requirements for radiation protection are going to look like, that will inform how they build and design their reactor, in terms of the shielding and the materials that they’re using," he said.
Supporters in the industry have for years criticized ALARA, linking it to a model known as Linear No-Threshold, which treats any dose of radiation as carrying some cancer risk. Industry critics contend that complying with ALARA imposes costs, delays and uncertainties in construction and operations.
Opponents of the proposed change, including nuclear safety advocates, contend that removing ALARA could permit greater exposures. Edwin Lyman, a physicist and nuclear safety advocate at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the NRC has reaffirmed the scientific consensus on radiation risks but criticized the proposed elimination of ALARA.
"However, 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 proposal follows other recent NRC rule changes under consideration. Last month the commission proposed alterations that include changes to security standards at nuclear plants; the Union of Concerned Scientists said those changes would "dramatically weaken measures that protect their facilities from terrorist attacks." On the same day the ALARA-related proposal was announced, the NRC also advanced a rule that would make broad changes to reactor licensing, aimed in part at streamlining construction of new reactors.
The radiation rule will be open for public comment for 45 days before it is finalized. The agency says the revisions are intended to provide clearer regulatory expectations to designers and operators of nuclear facilities, and to reflect modern approaches to dose assessment.
Analysis: The NRC frames this effort as regulatory clarification to reduce cost and time uncertainty for new builds, while critics see a potential trade-off between cost savings and public and worker protections. The proposal intersects with broader administration objectives to expand nuclear capacity and speed permitting, and it sits alongside separate rulemakings on security and licensing that together could affect the pace and economics of nuclear development.