nuclear weapons

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or NRC, whose mission is to protect public health and safety regarding nuclear energy, has now transformed into an agency, as so many have under the current administration, to support the nuclear industry and its billionaire backers. Following other captured federal agencies like the Department of Energy, which is variably led by individuals from the very industries it is intended to regulate, the NRC is under pressure from the president to facilitate the quadrupling of nuclear energy production by 2050. This is to be accomplished by fast-tracking the licensure and building of reactors while discarding the nuclear radiation exposure safety measures in place for decades as these are seen to be onerous and financially burdensome to the industry.

The current safety standard for nuclear exposure comes from the BEIR VII (Biologic Effects of Ionizing Radiation) study. This was produced by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and concluded that there is no safe level of ionizing radiation exposure above background, noting that any excess exposure above background increases the risk to human health of cancer, and other diseases associated with nuclear exposure. This is the so-called Linear No Threshold, LNT, theory. This theory is the basis for the core precautionary safety principle and risk management approach used in the fields of ionizing radiation exposure from medicine and dentistry to nuclear energy referred to as “ALARA,” or "As Low As Reasonably Achievable.”