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nuclear regulatory commission
Groups Warn Trump Executive Orders Would Spike Cancers Caused by Exposure to Nuclear Radiation
A letter implored the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to "stand up to the executive order’s marching orders to 'promote' nuclear power."
Nov 14, 2025
A series of nuclear power-related executive orders issued by President Donald Trump seek to legitimize people's "suffering as the price of nuclear expansion," said one expert at Beyond Nuclear on Friday, as the nongovernmental organization spearheaded a letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and top Trump administration officials warning of the public health risks of the orders.
More than 40 civil society groups—including Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), Sierra Club, Nuclear Watch South, and the Appalachian Peace Education Center—signed the letter to the commission, calling on officials not to revise the NRC's Standards for Protection Against Radiation, as they were directed to earlier this year by Trump.
"NRC has not made a revision yet, and has been hearing that the Part 20 exposure (external only) should be taken from the existing 100 mr [milliroentgen] a year, per license, to 500 mr a year, and in view of some, even to 10 Rems [Roentgen Equivalent Man], which would be 100 times the current level," reads the letter.
In 2021, noted PSR, the NRC "roundly rejected" a petition "to raise allowable radiation exposures for all Americans, including children and pregnant women, to 10 Rems a year."
The revision to radiation limit standards would result in anywhere from 5-100 times less protection for Americans, said the groups, with 4 out of 5 adult males exposed over a 70-year lifetime developing cancer that they otherwise would not have.
"Radiation is dangerous for everyone,” said Amanda M. Nichols, lead author of the 2024 study Gender and Ionizing Radiation. “[Trump’s] executive order will allow the industry to relax the current standards for radiological protection, which are already far from adequate. This will have detrimental health consequences for humans and for our shared environments and puts us all at higher risk for negative health consequences. ”
The change in standards would be even more consequential for women, including pregnant women, and children—all of whom are disproportionately susceptible to health impacts of ionizing radiation, compared to adult males.
"Radiation causes infertility, loss of pregnancy, birth complications and defects, as well as solid tumor cancer, leukemia, non-cancer outcomes including cardiovascular disease, increased incidence of autoimmune disease, and ongoing new findings.”
In Gender and Ionizing Radiation, Nichols and biologist Mary Olson examined atomic bomb survivor data and found that young girls "face twice the risk as boys of the same age, and have four to five times the risk of developing cancer later in life than a woman exposed in adulthood."
Despite the risks to some of the country's most vulnerable people, Trump has also called for a revision of "the basis of the NRC regulation," reads Friday's letter: the Linear No Threshold (LNT) model, the principle that there is no safe level of radiation and that cancer risk to proportional to dose.
The LNT model is supported by decades of peer-reviewed research, the letter states, but one of Trump's executive orders calls for "an additional weakening of protection by setting a threshold, or level, below which radiation exposure would not 'count' or be considered as to have not occurred."
The Standards for Protection Against Radiation are "based on the well-documented findings that even exposures so small that they cannot be measured may, sometimes, result in fatal cancer," reads the letter. "The only way to reduce risk to zero requires zero radiation exposure."
Trump's orders "would undermine public trust by falsely claiming that the NRC’s radiation risk models lack scientific basis, despite decades of peer-reviewed evidence and international consensus supporting the LNT model," it adds.
The signatories noted that the US government could and should strengthen radiation regulations by ending its reliance on "Reference Man"—a model that the NRC uses to create its risk assessments, which is based on a young adult male and fails to reflect the greater impact on infants, young children, and women.
“Newer research has shown that external radiation harms children more than adults and female bodies more than male bodies," reads the letter. "Existing standards should therefore be strengthened to account for these life-stage and gender disparities… not weakened. Radiation causes infertility, loss of pregnancy, birth complications and defects, as well as solid tumor cancer, leukemia, non-cancer outcomes including cardiovascular disease, increased incidence of autoimmune disease, and ongoing new findings.”
Olson, who is the CEO of the Generational Radiation Impact Project, which also helped organize the letter, warned that "radiation causes cancer in women at twice the rate of adult men, while the same exposure in early childhood, will, across their lifetimes, produce seven times more cancer in young females, and four times more in young males.”
The groups emphasized that "executive orders do not have the power to require federal agencies to take actions that violate their governing statutes, nor to grant them powers and authorities that contradict those governing statutes. The NRC needs to stand up to the executive order’s marching orders to 'promote' nuclear power—a mission outside its legal regulatory mandate under the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 and the concurrent amendments to the Atomic Energy Act."
Federal agencies including the NRC, they added, "should not favor industry propaganda asserting that some radiation is safe over science-based protection of the public. This is a deliberate subversion of science and public health in favor of corporate interests."
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Experts Warn Trump Attack on Nuclear Regulator Raises Disaster Risk
"Simply put," said one critic, "the U.S. nuclear industry will fail if safety is not made a priority."
May 23, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders on Friday that will overhaul the independent federal agency responsible for regulating the nation's nuclear power plants, aiming to expedite the construction of new nuclear reactors—a move that experts have warned will increase safety risks.
According to a White Housestatement, Trump's directives "will usher in a nuclear energy renaissance," in part by allowing Department of Energy laboratories to conduct nuclear reactor design testing, green-lighting reactor construction on federal lands, and lifting regulatory barriers "by requiring the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to issue timely licensing decisions."
The Trump administration is seeking to shorten the years-long NRC process of approving new licenses for nuclear power plants and reactors to within 18 months.
"If you aren't independent of political and industry influence, then you are at risk of an accident."
White House Office of Science and Technology Director Michael Kratsios said Friday that "over the last 30 years, we stopped building nuclear reactors in America—that ends now."
"We are restoring a strong American nuclear industrial base, rebuilding a secure and sovereign domestic nuclear fuel supply chain, and leading the world towards a future fueled by American nuclear energy," he added.
However, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) warned that the executive orders will result in "all but nullifying" the NRC's regulatory process, "undermining the independent federal agency's ability to develop and enforce safety and security requirements for commercial nuclear facilities."
"This push by the Trump administration to usurp much of the agency's autonomy as they seek to fast-track the construction of nuclear plants will weaken critical, independent oversight of the U.S. nuclear industry and poses significant safety and security risks to the public," UCS added.
Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the UCS, said, "Simply put, the U.S. nuclear industry will fail if safety is not made a priority."
"By fatally compromising the independence and integrity of the NRC, and by encouraging pathways for nuclear deployment that bypass the regulator entirely, the Trump administration is virtually guaranteeing that this country will see a serious accident or other radiological release that will affect the health, safety, and livelihoods of millions," Lyman added. "Such a disaster will destroy public trust in nuclear power and cause other nations to reject U.S. nuclear technology for decades to come."
Friday's executive orders follow reporting earlier this month by NPR that revealed the Trump administration has tightened control over the NRC, in part by compelling the agency to send proposed reactor safety rules to the White House for review and possible editing.
Allison Macfarlane, who was nominated to head the NRC during the Obama administration, called the move "the end of independence of the agency."
"If you aren't independent of political and industry influence, then you are at risk of an accident," Macfarlane warned.
On the first day of his second term, Trump also signed executive orders declaring a dubious "national energy emergency" and directing federal agencies to find ways to reduce regulatory roadblocks to "unleashing American energy," including by boosting fossil fuels and nuclear power.
The rapid advancement and adoption of artificial intelligence systems is creating a tremendous need for energy that proponents say can be met by nuclear power. The Three Mile Island nuclear plant—the site of the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history—is being revived with funding from Microsoft, while Google parent company Alphabet, online retail giant Amazon, and Facebook owner Meta are among the competitors also investing in nuclear energy.
"Do we really want to create more radioactive waste to power the often dubious and questionable uses of AI?" Johanna Neumann, Environment America Research & Policy Center's senior director of the Campaign for 100% Renewable Energy, asked in December.
"Big Tech should recommit to solutions that not only work but pose less risk to our environment and health," Neumann added.
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Scientists Say Senate Bill Will Endanger People 'Living Downwind' of Nuclear Plants
"This is not about making the reactor licensing process more efficient, but about weakening safety and security oversight across the board, a long-standing industry goal," says one nuclear safety expert.
Jun 17, 2024
As U.S. senators prepare to vote on a bipartisan bill proponents say will accelerate the development and commercialization of advanced nuclear reactor technologies, the Union of Concerned Scientists warned Monday that the legislation would increase the chances of a "catastrophic" meltdown by weakening the Nuclear Regulatory Commission—an agency already ridden by conflicts of interest.
Upper chamber lawmakers are expected to vote this week on a package that includes provisions from the Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy (ADVANCE) Act, introduced last year by Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), and legislation passed by the House of Representatives in a 365-36 vote on February 28.
Proponents of the legislation argue it will facilitate U.S. nuclear leadership, develop and deploy new reactor technology, preserve existing nuclear energy, and more.
"A compromised NRC could lead to a catastrophic reactor meltdown impacting an entire region for a generation."
However, critics including the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) argue that the bill threatens the independence of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), some of whose officials have long been criticized for their dangerously close ties to the industry they regulate. Additionally, NRC advisers have been accused of undisclosed conflicts of interest.
"It's extremely disappointing that, without any meaningful debate, Congress is about to erase 50 years of independent nuclear safety oversight by changing the NRC's mission to not only protect public health and safety but also to protect the financial health of the industry and its investors," UCS director of nuclear power safety Edwin Lyman said in a statement Monday.
"Just as lax regulation by the [Federal Aviation Administration]—an agency already burdened by conflicts of interests—can lead to a catastrophic failure of an aircraft, a compromised NRC could lead to a catastrophic reactor meltdown impacting an entire region for a generation," he continued.
"Make no mistake: This is not about making the reactor licensing process more efficient, but about weakening safety and security oversight across the board, a long-standing industry goal," Lyman contended. "The change to the NRC's mission effectively directs the agency to enforce only the bare minimum level of regulation at every facility it oversees across the United States."
"Passage of this legislation will only increase the danger to people already living downwind of nuclear facilities from a severe accident or terrorist attack, and it will make it even more difficult for communities to prevent risky, experimental reactors from being sited in their midst," he added.
In a February opinion piece published by The Hill, Lyman asserted that the ADVANCE Act would "put the proverbial fox in charge of the henhouse" by eroding the independence of an agency that critics say is already too cozy with the nuclear industry.
"Congress needs to strengthen, rather than weaken, the NRC's science-based safety focus," Lyman stressed.
This post has been updated to clarify that the Senate and House bills are part of a broader package, which senators ultimately passed on June 18.
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