Regulators

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is proposing to eliminate a foundational safety principle that has for 50 years minimized the radiation people in the United States are exposed to and that has been adopted around the world.

Currently, facilities such as nuclear plants, hospitals or academic institutions that use radioactive materials must ensure radiation exposures are kept “as low as reasonably achievable” — the ALARA principle. The NRC proposal would abandon that philosophy while keeping a separate standard on maximum radiation exposure.

The two standards have worked together in radiation safety. Dose limits set the maximum amount of radiation the public and radiation workers can be exposed to, while ALARA kept radiation exposure as low as practical under those limits. Research shows radiation exposure increases a person’s chance of getting cancer, a risk that increases as the dose increases.

The dose limits are not changing. But the NRC, which regulates civilian nuclear energy technologies and radioactive materials, now wants to replace ALARA with a “graded approach” that includes several actions facilities must take depending on the potential dose of radiation to workers. More rigorous radiation protection measures would be required when approaching dose limits to ensure they aren’t exceeded.

This comes as President Trump attempts to quadruple domestic nuclear energy production because of surging electricity demand amid a data center and artificial intelligence boom. Reforming the NRC is one way Trump is trying to speed up nuclear reactor development. He instructed the federal agency in an executive order last year to “adopt science-based radiation limits.”

The Energy Department, which oversees national energy policies, has already stopped using ALARA. The NRC expects to finalize its radiation protection regulations in the coming months.

NRC Chairman Ho Nieh said the commission is not lowering the bar on safety.

“We’re just removing the ambiguity,” he said in a call with reporters. “But the standard for exposure to workers and the public, those are not changing. We’re just putting in place greater clarification.”

Nieh doesn’t expect major changes within the nation’s existing fleet of large, traditional reactors. But companies designing and building new, smaller reactors could move faster with a clearer picture of the radiation protection requirements, he said.

Could radiation doses creep higher?

The NRC said radiation exposure limits are set well below levels associated with health effects, and it expects remaining standards and industry practices to keep radiation doses far below the limits. There’s incentive to do so — it’s more expensive and time-consuming to work in areas with higher radiation because access must be restricted and more surveys are required.

The nuclear industry’s trade association agrees with the NRC.

“We will always continue to look at what can we do to reduce the dose to workers, and maintain our doses to the off-site public as low as possible,” said Doug True, chief nuclear officer at the Nuclear Energy Institute. “It’s not like we’re just going to throw open the doors and let everything run up to the limits.”

ALARA created a “moving target” for regulation, said Justin Friedman, a nuclear energy consultant who previously spent three decades at the U.S. Department of State. Getting rid of the rule would allow NRC scientists to make more rational decisions about appropriate levels of manageable risk, he added.

Some experts question cutting ALARA

Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, cautions that some parts of the NRC proposal could raise permissible radiation doses in certain cases, while still staying below the cap. Lyman highlighted a proposed revision to radionuclide emissions standards, in particular.

Radiation exposure to the general public is limited to 100 millirem per year. A typical dose of radiation from a chest X-ray is 10 millirem.

The NRC wants to increase its radionuclide emissions standards from a conservative, 10 millirem per year dose to 25 millirem per year, based on a hypothetical person living in a house at the property line for a nuclear plant.

The NRC says actual doses to the public would remain far lower because, in reality, people live farther from nuclear sites and benefit from dispersion in air and water.

The NRC should improve, rather than eliminate, ALARA, Lyman said, to protect the public and workers. ALARA has become a political target because some people mistakenly believe radiation exposures have to be as low as possible no matter the cost, Lyman said. In reality, it allows trade-offs.

Katy Huff, a former U.S. assistant secretary for nuclear energy, said in some cases, the requirement may be challenging to regulate. Additional clarity would improve the regulatory environment without harming the public, added Huff, a professor and department chair at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

However, Huff said, she thought the NRC was going to clarify what “reasonably” means in ALARA without scrapping it. She said she’s open to being convinced the graded approach will be just as effective.

One expert sees a mixed bag

The National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements, chartered by Congress to provide independent scientific guidance, has not formally weighed in yet. Council President Kathryn Higley said she likes some things in the 180-page document but thinks others are problematic.

The NRC should look at the whole picture for managing risk, she said. For instance, if a worker at a nuclear power plant were to enter an area where airborne radioactive materials are present, in keeping with ALARA, they might wear full personal protective equipment with respirators, said Higley, professor emeritus at Oregon State University. That makes them move slower, potentially subjecting them to heat stress that could hurt them more than a low dose of radioactivity, she said.

A concern with the proposal, Higley said, is that it maintains the current occupational dose limit for adult radiation workers at 5 rem, or 5,000 millirem, per year. With ALARA in place, the average dose to workers has been well below that cap.

The International Commission on Radiological Protection recommends an occupational dose of 2 rem per year on average. The NRC previously found it wasn’t justified to match that, because workers were exposed to less than that and changing regulations is costly.

Higley said the U.S. may need to align with the international community if ALARA is going away.

McDermott writes for the Associated Press.

Paramount Skydance has notched a needed win as it continues to pursue its $111-billion deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery.

On Wednesday, the European Commission gave its consent, allowing tech scion David Ellison’s industry-reshaping merger to move forward in the countries that make up the European Union.

Europe joins 64 other regulatory entities that have either approved the deal or chosen not to challenge it, Paramount said in a statement.

“These clearances recognize that the combination of Paramount and WBD will enhance consumer choice and enable a creative-first company to invest in more projects and bring stories to audiences worldwide,” Paramount said. “It will create a scaled media and entertainment company capable of competing with the tech companies that have come to dominate the industry.”

European regulators added just one condition: Paramount must end a partnership with Universal Pictures to share distribution of movies in Europe. Beyond that, regulators concluded that even with the proposed Paramount-Warner consolidation there were enough producers to avoid competitive harms.

“The Commission found that, at film production level, enough film studios remain as competitors,” the European Commission said in a statement. “These include other major US studios like Disney, NBC Universal … and Sony, along with smaller US studios such as Amazon MGM, A24 and Lionsgate, as well as European studios.”

But the merger would result in a “high concentration” of film distribution, the commission said, so Paramount would have 13 months to end its joint venture, United International Pictures, which distributes Paramount and Universal films to cinema owners in Europe.

Paramount must not “directly or indirectly … enter into any agreement or understanding with Universal to jointly co-distribute films” in the European countries for 10 years, the commission said.

Despite early concerns about potential dominance in the children’s television market, Paramount will not be required to divest Cartoon Network, a Warner asset, because of its ownership of Nickelodeon.

“The Commission found that streaming platforms offering children’s content will continue to act as a competitive constraint on the merged entity’s TV channels,” the agency said.

The European Commission joins regulators in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Saudi Arabia, Serbia and South Africa that have found the deal would not crush competition in their respective markets. Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority is still investigating the merger’s impacts.

Paramount secured the approval of the U.S. Justice Department last month. The company was hoping to close its blockbuster acquisition of Warner Bros., which owns HBO, CNN and the Burbank studios behind such popular characters as Batman, Superman, Harry Potter, Scooby-Doo, by the end of September to avoid a larger payout to Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders.

The European Commission’s approval came two days after Ellison’s firm was dealt a substantial setback.

A federal judge in Oakland on Monday issued a temporary restraining order preventing Paramount from finalizing the acquisition for at least 14 days as that antitrust case heats up. The decision came after 12 state attorneys general, led by California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, filed a lawsuit last week alleging the merger would violate U.S. antitrust rules.

District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín scheduled an Aug. 3 hearing to determine whether a longer-term pause is warranted. The states are expected to seek a preliminary injunction, which would tie up Paramount’s merger for months.

Paramount, in its statement, noted the European Commission’s conclusions “directly refute key assumptions that underpin the state AGs’ complaint seeking to block the transaction,” including whether big-budget or blockbuster films should be considered a market.

Wednesday’s approval “marks another significant milestone in bringing Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery together,” Makan Delrahim, Paramount’s chief legal officer said in the statement. “We appreciate the Commission’s constructive engagement and thorough analysis throughout its review.”

Deal critic Alvaro Bedoya, a former Federal Trade Commission member who is now a senior adviser at the American Economic Liberties Project, offered a conflicting view.

“This is not remotely over. The United States is not Europe,” Bedoya said in a statement.

The Writers Guild of America joined the legal fray last week by filing its own antitrust complaint against Paramount, alleging the proposed union of two of Hollywood’s biggest studios would lead to fewer jobs and lower pay for writers. The WGA is also seeking an injunction.

The 37-page lawsuit filed by the state attorneys general alleges that Paramount’s proposed takeover — the largest Hollywood deal in decades — would violate the U.S. Clayton Antitrust Act, a century-old law to prevent mergers that weaken competition and raise costs for consumers.

In her order granting the states’ request for a temporary restraining order, Martínez-Olguín wrote: “The Transaction would also be difficult, if not impossible, to unwind if permitted to proceed given the anticipated consolidation of operations, sharing of business-sensitive information, and potential termination or reassignment of employees.”

Paramount faces a potential $7 billion payment to Warner Bros. should the company fail to close the transaction by next summer.

California is facing a major vote in the days ahead — and no, it’s not who will be the next governor.

Regulators at the California Air Resources Board are set to decide on May 28 whether to approve the latest blueprint for limits on greenhouse gas emissions from major polluters through 2045, a program known as cap-and-invest. The update to the state’s signature climate program has Sacramento in a tizzy and seemingly no one is pleased with the proposal on the table.

California is one of a handful of states, and the first, to have an an enforceable annual limit on the emissions that change the climate.

After a January draft was criticized by both industry and lawmakers over concerns that capping emissions too much and too quickly would drive up already soaring energy costs, CARB went back to the drawing board and came up with the latest iteration, unveiled in April. But opponents now say the plan kowtows to oil and gas interests who are lobbying hard for concessions, citing an already unstable state and international energy market.

The program works by setting a limit on the greenhouse gases that industries can emit in California. Companies must obtain credits, or allowances, for every ton they release, with the total number of allowances declining over time, consistent with what scientists say actually addresses climate change. The auctions for unused allowances generate billions of dollars in revenue for the state each year that fund clean energy, clean water and other key climate programs.

This year’s original draft sought to remove 118 million allowances from the market by 2030, which it identified as the minimum that must be retired to meet the state’s ambitious climate goals. But the April revision upends that, instead creating a new pool of 118 million “compliance instruments” — defined as allowances or offset credits — above the cap that companies can earn if they invest in decarbonization projects.

Critics argue this first-of-its-kind mechanism, called the Manufacturing Decarbonization Incentive, effectively dismantles the program.

“The whole goal of the cap is to lower emissions over time,” said Mary Creasman, chief executive of the nonprofit California Environmental Voters. “To then allow pollution above the cap is kind of blowing up the program.”

CARB maintains that this change still cuts the emissions coming from California, because the new instruments enter the market only “if they’re applied for, are approved, and deliver verified greenhouse gas emissions reductions.” And the proposal still results in an 11% cap decline year over year through 2030, and 7% from 2031 to 2045, said spokeswoman Lindsay Buckley.

The move would also significantly reduce cap-and-invest’s revenue, according to an analysis from the Legislative Analyst’s Office. It found that the new plan would result in a loss of $2 billion, or roughly 50% less money per year for the state’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, than it has received through the program in recent years.

Many of the lawmakers who voted to reauthorize the program last year are also concerned. Nearly 30 Democrats signed a recent letter urging the air board to “push back on pressure from an oil industry that is making hundreds of billions in wartime profits.”

The fossil fuel industry has indeed lobbied heavily against requirements that it pollute less, spending a record $10.3 million in the first quarter of this year to influence state policy around cap-and-invest and other climate and energy issues, state records show. Among them are the Western States Petroleum Assn., Chevron and Phillips 66, which have argued that lowering the pollution cap will drive up gasoline prices and push more refineries out of the state.

But even they are not thrilled with the latest iteration of the cap-and-invest plan.

“We need to continue to be competitive with other refineries throughout the world, and while there are some very short-term changes within the [revised package], it still doesn’t have the long-term certainty that will drive investment,” said Jodie Muller, WSPA’s chief executive. Muller said she’d like to see the new decarbonization incentive program extended beyond 2030 and eligibility expanded to include additional activities, such as refinery maintenance programs.

“It’s important that we get this right,” she said.

More California climate news

Gov. Gavin Newsom recently unveiled his revised $350-billion budget proposal, which came with an unexpected $16.8-billion increase in tax revenue largely attributed to the success of artificial intelligence companies. Among the plan’s big wins and losses are boosted funding for public schools and higher health premiums for undocumented immigrants.

On the environment, the plan broadly maintains funding and policy support for climate commitments, such as a $200-million incentive program for passenger electric vehicles designed to make up for federal tax credits canceled by the Trump administration. It also includes a new $100-million disaster rebuilding fund to help wildfire survivors rebuild their homes.

But the plan does not include major new spending on the environment, in part due to the ongoing restructuring of cap-and-invest, the state’s main climate funding source. Some environmental groups said the revised budget doesn’t do enough to support California’s clean energy transition or hold oil and gas companies accountable for their role in the climate crisis.

Katelyn Roedner Sutter of the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund urged lawmakers to prioritize proven climate investments in the final budget agreement, such as virtual power plants and incentives for zero-emission delivery trucks. “The actions we take over the next decade are vital to preventing the worst possible scenarios for our kids’ future,” she said.

A few more things

Speaking of the governor’s race, California Resources Corp., one of the state’s top oil producers, just made a hefty $500,000 contribution to an independent campaign committee supporting leading Democratic candidate Xavier Becerra, Politico reported. Becerra has already been criticized for accepting a $39,200 donation from Chevron, while opponents Tom Steyer and Katie Porter have both pledged not to accept contributions from fossil fuel companies.

Fervo Energy, a Houston-based geothermal developer with a major Google project in Utah, raised $1.89 billion in an initial public offering this month. The company’s $7.7-billion valuation signals growing investor appetite for energy companies amid soaring demand for electricity fueled by the growth of AI, the Wall Street Journal said. Geothermal technology taps into pockets of steam and hot water rising from the center of the earth, which is then used to spin turbines to generate power.

Los Angeles is gearing up for its role as a host city of the 2026 World Cup, which will be held in 16 stadiums across Canada, the U.S. and Mexico beginning in mid-June. But experts told my colleague Blanca Begert that the tournament’s expansion will make it “the most emissions-intensive World Cup that we’ve ever seen,” in part because fans and players will have to traverse the three countries to watch the games. Jet exhaust is a major contributor to climate change, representing 3% to 4% of all warming. It is the second of our stories examining the environmental implications of the coming World Cup.