Katy Huff on the impact of loosening radiation regulations

Katy Huff, former assistant secretary of nuclear energy at the Department of Energy, recently wrote an op-ed that was published in Scientific American.

In the piece, Huff, who is an ANS member and an associate professor in the Department of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering at the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign, argues that weakening Nuclear Regulatory Commission radiation regulations without new research-based evidence will fail to speed up nuclear energy development and could have negative consequences.

Public comment on proposed changes "has been sparse and rushed," Huff says, arguing that "the commissioners need better data before they act."

The background: Huff opens by explaining that the linear no-threshold (LNT) model, which "says that every additional dose of ionizing radiation, however small, adds a small risk to health," has anchored U.S. radiation dose limits for decades.

In May 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for the reform of the NRC. As part of that EO, Trump ordered that the NRC "reconsider its reliance on the [LNT] model for radiation exposure and the 'as low as reasonably achievable' standard, which is predicated on LNT." Elsewhere, the EO says that the NRC's safety models "lack sound scientific basis and produce irrational results, such as requiring that nuclear plants protect against radiation below naturally occurring levels."

The EO argues that retiring LNT will reduce staffing redundancies, simplify reactor design and licensing, and ultimately spur nuclear energy production.

Not mentioned in Huff's article-but pertinent to ongoing discourse-is the recent report from E&E News that the DOE is in the process of retiring the principle of ALARA, or keeping radiation exposures as low as reasonably achievable.

A report released by Idaho National Laboratory in July 2025 and prepared in response to the EO made a case for eliminating ALARA and setting higher dose limits. Other experts have asserted that the EO provides an opportunity to unify and clarify U.S. radiation regulations across agencies by establishing a scientifically justified "below regulatory concern" threshold.

A closer look: Huff focuses on the approach to radiation safety used to date in the U.S. and in other nations, and on the safety implications of the proposed changes. "Loosening the protections of [LNT] is not supported by current research," she says, and refers to research that warns that relaxing protections "could especially place women and children at higher risk of damage from radiation."

She goes on to explain that the LNT model is based on extrapolation from data on the effects of high radiation exposure because, at low doses, "it becomes difficult to distinguish the health effects of radiation from the other environmental and lifestyle factors that can affect health."

The uncertainty that extrapolation necessarily creates "is why regulators rely on a cautious approach like the LNT model, and also why some people question its use."

Huff encourages continued support for ongoing research to test alternative models for low-dose exposure, including the research program recommended in a June 2022 report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

People, she argues, "are willing to accept the radiation risks inherent in medicine, industry and energy because they trust that standards have been set by credible experts relying on evidence who err on the side of caution and protecting human health. Weakening regulations without new evidence would do the opposite."