Food safety advocates and public health watchdogs are warning of a “quiet but sweeping overhaul” in a decades-long radiation regulation that could increase radioactive isotopes in domestic agriculture soils, rivers, aquifers and the food chain.
At the heart of their concerns is the difference between the current regulation on radioactivity and the proposed change put forth by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
As it is now, and has been for decades, the current standard is "As Low As Reasonably Achievable,” often referred to as ALARA. Under this safety standard, nuclear facility operators must reduce radiation releases to the absolute lowest levels possible.
In contrast, under the "Reforming and Modernizing the NRC Protection Framework," the commission is proposing what it refers to as a “graded approach” that establishes “fixed-dose limits.”
The trouble with that approach, warn opponents, is that those limits may actually be determined solely by industry or exempted, and largely remove federal oversight for decommissioning plants, waste storage sites, and other radioactive facilities.
Some say this is a case of having the fox guard the henhouse.
On the other side of the fence, Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chair Ho Nieh said in a statement that the agency is “raising the standard for regulatory clarity, not lowering the standard for safety.”
“Our radiation dose limits remain unchanged — what we’re eliminating is unnecessary ambiguity,” he said.
Outraged by this turn of events, Kimberly Roberson, director the the Fukushima Fallout Awareness Network, says that “the NRC is treating radiation exposure like a sunburn,” while completely ignoring how radioactive particles behave when ingested.”
And she pointed out that according to NRC's own analysis, the proposed rollback is projected to nearly double the fatal cancer risk for individuals living near these facilities over a 70-year lifespan.
"Existing nuclear radiation standards are not protective enough as it is,” she said. “By removing the ALARA rule, the government is allowing nuclear facilities to arbitrarily release even more low-level radioactive waste into our air and water. These radionuclides are harmful and don't disappear; they bioaccumulate in local pastures, crops, livestock, milk supplies, and people.”
She pointed out that relaxing NRC federal oversight is in direct conflict with the function of a regulatory agency to protect the public and the environment.
“That function should not be compromised or eliminated by executive orders designed to save the nuclear industry time and money at the expense of public health and safety,” she said.
She warns that if the NRC stops enforcing minimized environmental releases, it would fall to the Food and Drug Administration to “police radioactive contamination in our food.”
‘"It's unacceptable that NRC is abandoning the ALARA principle in favor of the caveat emptor principle," Roberson said. "Advocacy groups are demanding not only that the NRC maintain ALARA, but that it strengthen existing protections and do its job, which is to safeguard public health, not industry profits. We urge concerned citizens to file formal comments to the NRC proposed rule this month."
The comment period ends Aug. 31. Members of the public can read the NRC proposed rule and officially file their comments by visiting Regulations.gov and inputting Docket ID: NRC-2025-1140. Comments on the proposed NRC rule can also be submitted to the Federal Register by Aug. 31.
Go here (www.protectbetter.org) for more information and some videos about this issue. Go here (https://www.regulations.gov/docket/NRC-2025-1140/comments) to see the comments posted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as of Aug. 30, 2026.
