By Kennedy Maize
The Trump-dominated U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission this month has rolled back a series of long-standing regulations aimed at environmental, worker, and public health protections. In each case, the NRC moves reflect actions long on the nuclear power industry’s regulatory wish list, and many promoted in White House executive orders. 
In chronological order:
- On July 7, the NRC issued a proposed rule to dramatically scale back its implementation of the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act.
- On July 15, the NRC issued a proposed rule to relax rules on radiation protection, scrapping its 35 year old “as low as reasonably achievable” (ALARA) standard.
- On July 21, the commission proposed to streamline NRC’s rules for medical use of radioactive materials.
The NEPA action is perhaps the most far reaching. An analysis by the Holland & Knight law firm concluded, “The proposal represents the most significant overhaul of the NRC’s environmental review framework in decades and, if finalized, would dramatically reduce the scope, duration and procedural complexity of NEPA reviews for nuclear facility licensing actions.”
The commission downplayed the proposal, issuing a brief news release stating that the aim is “narrowing environmental reviews to impacts within the agency’s statutory authority and expanding opportunities to streamline licensing for new nuclear projects while maintaining environmental protections.”
Chairman Ho K. Nieh said, ““This proposal focuses our environmental reviews on what matters. By concentrating on impacts the NRC can address, we’ll strengthen environmental protection while making licensing reviews more timely and predictable.”
The Holland & Knight analysis belies Nieh’s statement. It highlights four areas where the commission is pushing major changes in how it reviews the environmental impacts of nuclear power.
The first is the narrowing of the definition of “effects.” That redefinition “means that non-radiological impacts – such as dust, noise, non-radiological water and air quality effects, as well as ecological impacts during construction – would no longer fall within the scope of the NRC’s NEPA analysis…”
Next is the expansion of the universe of “categorical exclusions” that the agency need not consider in its NEPA review, aka “CatExs.” The NRC plan would establish new “CatExs” for “license renewals, construction permits, early site permits and other common licensing activities.” The proposal would also adopt CatExs from other federal agencies, let the commission approve CatExs proposed on the commission’s web site “outside notice-and-comment rulemaking,” and establish a “petition pathway” for interested parties to propose new categorical exceptions.
Third, the NRC proposal “introduces a second pathway for environmental review. With the NRC’s discretionary authorization, applicants may now hire a qualified contractor to prepare a draft environmental assessment (EA) or environmental impact statement (EIS)….This is in addition to the traditional approach of submitting an environmental report for NRC staff to use in preparing its own EA/EIS.”
Finally, “The proposed rule codifies firm timelines and document length constraints that provide unprecedented predictability for project planning….Additionally, the rule narrows the purpose-and-need statement and alternatives analysis to the ‘proposed agency action’ (i.e., the licensing decision itself). In most cases, this limits the range of alternatives to the no-action alternative, since the NRC lacks authority to implement alternatives such as facility siting or generation technology choices.”
The second NRC proposal scraps ALARA with a replacement dubbed “graded approach to dose management.” A separate Holland & Knight analysis summarizes the impact of the change to eliminate “unnecessary conservatisms that hamper nuclear energy development, including new occupational dose flexibility, streamlined use of alternative dosimetry systems, higher public dose and effluent thresholds, and reduced reporting and administrative requirements in certain circumstances.”
But the NRC proposal does not go as far as the industry and the White House have called for, which would abandon the “linear no-threshold” or LNT model in favor of a predetermined radiation level below which radiation is deemed safe. According to Holland & Knight, “Instead, the NRC reaffirms that the linear dose-response model remains the most appropriate available consensus model for formulating radiation protection standards and planning radiation protection programs.”
The lawyers write, “The decision to reaffirm the LNT model makes the proposed rule more legally durable in light of the comprehensive review undertaken by the NRC between 2015 and 2021 that reached the same conclusion as there has been little new scientific evidence presented since that review to revise NRC’s analysis regarding LNT.”
Nevertheless, the NRC says it believes the ALARA approach is too conservative. “So the agency “proposes to use the linear model as a partial basis for regulation while removing the excessive conservatisms and potential for disproportionate enforcement….”
The NRC’s third proposed rule (not yet published in the Federal Register) impacts the medical use of regulated nuclear materials. It is likely to be the least contested of the trio. Titled “Reducing Barriers to Medical Use Licensing,” the proposal would simplify licensing for hospitals and clinics, update physician training, reduce disposal costs, and codify “current best practices for handling radioactive materials.”
In a news release, the commission said, “Radioactive materials are used in millions of medical procedures each year, including cancer treatments and diagnostic imaging. But portions of the NRC’s regulations have not kept pace with advances in radiopharmaceuticals, new treatment techniques, and evolving medical practice.”
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