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Deadline to comment on Trump’s proposal to weaken NRC radiation protections
COMMENT BY the 11:59 PM Eastern time Monday August 31, 2026 Comment
Deadline*
President Trump’s Executive Orders are pushing the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) to weaken radiation protections as part of an effort to
accelerate the construction of more nuclear reactors, nuclear-powered data
centers, and the expansion of the nuclear weapons complex. These changes
could expose people and communities to dramatically more radiation while
disregarding decades of evidence about the health risks of even low-dose
exposure.
Go to this page to comment:
WE MUST MAKE CLEAR:
· *No exemptions for radiation exposure.* Nuclear licensees must be
required to track and count all radiation doses and radioactive emissions,
with no minimum threshold. Any proposal allowing 25 millirem per year—or
any millirem or microrem level—before exposures begin to “count” would
effectively permit additional radiation exposure to go untracked. That
could mean higher worker doses and increased radioactive releases into our
air, water, and sewage, while making it harder to understand the true
health impacts of cumulative, low-dose radiation exposure. If radiation is
released and people are exposed, it should be tracked and reported and kept
to a minimum.
· *If new nuclear reactors are as safe and clean as the industry claims,
why do our existing health and safety protections need to be weakened to
build them?* The rush to expand nuclear power should not come at the
expense of safeguards designed to protect workers, communities, and the
public. If nuclear expansion requires weaker radiation standards to move
forward, that should raise serious questions—not justify lowering the
bar. *Don’t
weaken the regulations. *
· *We MUST retain the goal of keeping exposures to radiation As Low As
Reasonably Achievable.*
NRC Radiation Protection Rewrite — COMMENT BY MONDAY, AUG. 31
NRC proposes to strip the ALARA standard (“as low as reasonably achievable”) out of its regulations entirely and to let licensees apply case-by-case for higher public dose limits. First major rewrite of 10 CFR Part 20 since 1991. Driven by Executive Order 14300.
South Dakota stake: the package amends Appendix A to 10 CFR Part 40 (uranium mill tailings criteria) and includes a revised Regulatory Guide 8.31 on radiation protection programs at uranium recovery facilities — Dewey-Burdock and Edgemont territory.
Deadline: August 31, 2026, 11:59 p.m. Eastern (10:59 p.m. Mountain)
Federal Register: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/07/15/2026-14208/reforming-and-modernizing-the-nrcs-radiation-protection-framework — 91 FR 43456, Docket NRC-2025-1140
Comment directly: https://www.regulations.gov/document/NRC-2025-1140-0001
Action alert / talking points / draft comments: https://www.protectbetter.org/nrc-comments
Campaign home: https://www.protectbetter.org/
Background — Beyond Nuclear: https://beyondnuclear.org/protect-better-stop-more-radiation-exposure/
Union of Concerned Scientists analysis: https://www.ucs.org/about/news/new-nrc-radiation-rules-put-workers-communities-risk