In January of 2026, new internal orders from the Department of Energy were obtained by NPR, revealing shocking overhauls to the operations of the United States’ nuclear reactors, none of which were released to the general public. These orders included sweeping changes to safety regulations, accident investigations and environmental protections for areas around nuclear reactors.
The scale of these changes raises serious concerns for the safety of the general public, completely ignoring lessons our country has learned from previous incidents like Three Mile Island and the SL-1 nuclear accident, both of which led to revolutionary changes in reactor design, maintenance and operation to protect those around them better.
These changes come as a response to the Trump administration’s push to build small, modular nuclear reactors on a tight deadline. These reactors are, in part, supported by large corporations such as Meta, Amazon and Google, which want to use them to power AI systems. On average, small modular reactors like those proposed take three years to build, far longer than the months-long timeline that’s been given for the building of three untested, privately-designed reactor designs.
To accomplish its goals, this administration seems to be reducing or even outright removing necessary safety checks and construction requirements to squeeze these projects into their own timeline, disregarding the safety of both scientists and the general public.
This rushed work raises safety concerns because of several changes to the principle of “As Low As Reasonably Achievable,” a concept that’s been considered the “gold standard” in guiding nuclear safety regulations since the 1970s. It states that any radiation that does not directly benefit you should be avoided as much as humanly possible, and that there is no truly safe dose of radiation.
ALARA is a key driver of choices in reactor design: how thick concrete walls are to stop radiation leaks, how nuclear waste is disposed of, what materials are used and what safety checks are performed are all driven by the ALARA principle and policies inspired by it.
But now, ALARA is gone. Any references to it have been completely removed in the new orders released by the Department of Energy. The Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, later confirmed ALARA’s removal in a memo on January 9th, stating that the change was to help “reduce the economic and operational burden on nuclear energy while aligning with available scientific evidence.”
In reality, the principle of ALARA has prevented countless tragedies by successfully reducing the amount of radiation that nuclear workers are exposed to in their day-to-day lives. ALARA has already proven effective, and while science is meant to evolve and re-evaluate itself and its guidelines as new information becomes available, ALARA’s complete removal is both unnecessary and against scientific evidence.
It seems that these changes to safety guidelines are driven by nothing but greed, influenced by the will of big businesses and completely disregard the lives of those who have to build, maintain and live near these experimental plants. Nuclear energy can be perfectly safe when performed and maintained correctly. Still, previous nuclear accidents around the world like Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, SL-1 and many others have shown where this level of disregard for safety leads: disaster.
No amount of money or time saved by removing these guidelines will ever equate to the protection of even a single human life.
Shelby Born is a columnist. Contact her at [email protected].