The proposal would keep separate standards on maximum radiation exposure while abandoning the ALARA framework. 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. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission dose limits are not changing under the new plan.

Under the proposed graded approach, the commission wants to include 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 are not exceeded. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission expects to finalize its radiation protection regulations in the coming months.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission wants to increase its radionuclide emissions standards from 10 millirem per year to 25 millirem per year, based on a hypothetical person living in a house at the property line for a nuclear plant. The agency says actual doses to the public would remain far lower because people live farther from nuclear sites and benefit from dispersion in air and water. Radiation exposure to the general public is limited to 100 millirem per year, and a typical dose of radiation from a chest X-ray is 10 millirem.

The ALARA principle has been used for 50 years to minimize radiation exposure in the United States and has been adopted globally. The principle was first introduced in the 1970s by the International Commission on Radiological Protection and became a cornerstone of U.S. nuclear regulation in the 1980s. Facilities such as nuclear plants, hospitals, and academic institutions that use radioactive materials must currently ensure radiation exposures are kept "as low as reasonably achievable." Research shows radiation exposure increases a person’s chance of getting cancer, a risk that increases as the dose increases.

President Donald Trump instructed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in an executive order last year to "adopt science-based radiation limits." The president is attempting to quadruple domestic nuclear energy production due to surging electricity demand from data centers and artificial intelligence. The proposed shift away from ALARA aligns with a broader trend in U.S. regulatory policy under President Trump, including the removal of 214 federal regulations in 2025 to reduce compliance costs for industry. The Department of Energy has already stopped using the ALARA principle.

"We’re just removing the ambiguity," NRC Chairman Ho Nieh said in a call with reporters. Nieh stated the commission is not lowering the bar on safety. "But the standard for exposure to workers and the public, those are not changing," he said.

Nieh does not expect major changes within the nation’s existing fleet of large, traditional reactors. He stated that companies designing and building new, smaller reactors could move faster with a clearer picture of the radiation protection requirements.

In 2021, the NRC issued a report indicating that facilities applying the ALARA principle incurred an average of 15% higher operational costs compared to those using more flexible radiation management approaches. It is more expensive and time-consuming to work in areas with higher radiation because access must be restricted and more surveys are required.

Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, cautioned that some parts of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission proposal could raise permissible radiation doses in certain cases while still staying below the cap. He stated the Nuclear Regulatory Commission should improve, rather than eliminate, ALARA to protect the public and workers. He stated that ALARA has become a political target because some people mistakenly believe radiation exposures have to be as low as possible no matter the cost. He stated that in reality, ALARA allows tradeoffs.

Katy Huff, a former U.S. assistant secretary for nuclear energy, said in some cases the ALARA requirement may be challenging to regulate. Huff is a professor and department chair at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She stated that additional clarity would improve the regulatory environment without harming the public.

Huff said she thought the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was going to clarify what reasonable means in ALARA without scrapping it. Huff said she is open to being convinced the graded approach will be just as effective.

The National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements has not formally weighed in on the proposal yet. The council is chartered by Congress to provide independent scientific guidance. In 2022, the NRC conducted a risk assessment of its current radiation safety rules, finding that 87% of nuclear facilities already operated well below the ALARA threshold due to existing best practices. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission was established in 1975.