— Act now to stop radioactive pollution; NRC comment deadline August 31

From Committee to Bridge the Gap
July 15

This summer, we need your help, and this page will show you how.

An executive order from May 2025 urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to abandon the well-established radiation science in favor of weakening radiation protection standards. The current U.S. radiation standards are already outdated and fail to offer adequate public health protection; now, the NRC’s proposed rule (NRC-2025-1140) plans to weaken those standards even further. NRC’s radiation protection standards are referenced and utilized widely, so any weakening of these standards would result in system-wide increases in radiation exposure.

Join the campaign at ProtectBetter.org

How can I help?

You can submit a public comment now! Click here and you will be taken to the page where you can submit your comment.

Comments are due 08/31/2026 at 11:59 pm EST.

How do I comment? What do I say?

Helpful suggestions at https://committeetobridgethegap.org/2026/act-now-help-stop-radioactive-pollution/

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Effects of Weakening Radiation Protection Standards:

Here are the Facts:

  • Radioactive exposure causes cellular damage. Radioactive exposure can lead to cancer, heart disease, infertility, loss of pregnancy, birth defects, cardiovascular disease, and auto-immune diseases. (Beir VII)
  • Increasing the permitted radiation exposure standards allows the nuclear industry to generate more radioactive pollution —and more profit. This blatant attempt to make industry money by allowing more harmful radiation pollution exposure to the public is outrageous. (EO 14300)
  •  All radioactive exposure is harmful, exposure adds up over your lifetime and across generations. (Disproportionate Impacts of Radiation Exposure on Women, Children, and Pregnancy: Taking Back our Narrative)
  • The current standards are based on an adult male body—not women, not children, not girls. Girls face higher lifetime cancer risks. Pregnancy exposures can affect three generations at once. (Disproportionate impact of radiation and radiation regulation)
  • President Trump signing an EO does not change the science or the risks to the public. The NRC should follow the science, not a political agenda.
  • NRC’s Proposed Rules eliminate the longstanding As Low As Reasonable Achievable standard, also known as ALARA. (Federal Register / Vol. 91, No. 134 p. 43463)
  • NRC’s Proposed Rules allow workers to be exposed to 2 times the current yearly occupational limit, as long as the total exposure over 5 years is under 25 rem. (Federal Register / Vol. 91, No. 134 p. 43472)
  • NRC’s Proposed Rules increase allowable effluent releases from nuclear facilities by 2.5 times automatically, but polluters are allowed to increase releases by 10 times with the only penalty being that the polluter must send monitoring reports to the NRC. (Federal Register / Vol. 91, No. 134 p. 43471)
  • NRC’s Proposed Rules allow polluters to apply for alternative public dose limit that will be approved on a case-by-case basis, with no specified upper bound. (Federal Register / Vol. 91, No. 134 p. 43473)

https://committeetobridgethegap.org/2026/act-now-help-stop-radioactive-pollution/

— Tell EPA — Stop dangerous radioactive drinking water

From the Nuclear Information and Research Service

November 21, 2016

In July, thousands of us took action to stop dangerous new radiation guidance for drinking water. The EPA refused to listen, and now this guidance could be approved anytime–unless we act now!

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy is on the verge of approving radiation levels hundreds and thousands of times higher than currently allowed in drinking water and at cleaned-up Superfund sites. These mis-named “Protective” Action Guides for Drinking Water (Water PAGs)  dramatically INCREASE allowable radioactivity in water. Enormous levels of invisible but deadly radioactive contamination would be permitted in drinking water for weeks, months or even years after a nuclear accident or “incident.” The PAGs are not for the immediate phase after a radioactive release but the next phase–which could last for years–when local residents may return home to contaminated water and not know the danger.

Take action now: Protect drinking water from dangerous radiation levels!

There are two quick actions to take today:

  1. Tell your EPA Regional Administrator (see map and list below) to ask EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy why she is raising radiation levels allowed in drinking water.
  2. Send a message to Administrator McCarthy yourself asking her not to approve these dangerous radiation levels in drinking water.

We have stopped PAGs like these from being approved before–and we can do it again. EPA insiders attempted to push these dangerous guides through in the waning days of the Bush administration, and public pressure like this got the agency to pull them back. Now we have to do it again!

Click here to take action now.

Thanks for all you do!

Diane D’Arrigo
Radioactive Waste Project Director

More Information

The PAGs protect the polluters from liability, not the public from radiation. CHECK out this NBC4 News Story.

These PAGs are a bad legacy. Approving them now is a deceptive way to circumvent the Safe Drinking Water Act, Superfund cleanup levels, and EPA’s history of limiting the allowable risk of cancer to 1 in a million people exposed (or at most 1 in 10,000 in worst-case scenarios).

The PAGs don’t just affect water!

  • They markedly relax long-term cleanup standards.
  • They set very high and outdated radiation levels allowable in food.
  • They eliminate requirements to evacuate people vulnterable to high radiation doses to the thyroid and skin.
  • They eliminate limits on lifetime whole body radiation exposures.
  • And they recommend dumping radioactive waste in municipal garbage dumps not designed for such waste.

Outrageously, EPA is expanding the kinds of radioactive ‘incidents’ that would be allowed to give off these dangerously high levels and doses. PAGs originally applied to huge nuclear disasters like the nuclear power meltdowns at Fukushima or a dirty bomb BUT NOW they could ALSO apply to less dramatic releases from nuclear power reactors or radio-pharmaceutical spills, nuclear transport accidents, fires or any radioactive “incident” that “warrant[s] consideration of protective action.”

EPA REGIONS and REGIONAL ADMINISTRATORS

Region 1 Administrator Curt Spalding
(617) 918-1010
spalding.curt@epa.gov;

Region 2 Administrator Judith Enck
(212) 637-5000
enck.judith@epa.gov

Region 3 Administrator Cecil Rodrigues
(215) 814-2683
Rodrigues.cecil@Epa.gov

Region 4 Administrator Heather McTeer Toney
(404) 562-9900
McTeertoney.heather@Epa.gov

Region 5 Acting Administrator Robert A. Kaplan
(312) 886-3000
Kaplan.robert@Epa.gov

Region 6 Administrator Ron Curry
(214) 665-2100
Curry.ron@Epa.gov

Region 7 Administrator Mark Hague
(913) 551-7006
Hague.mark@Epa.gov

Region 8 Administrator Shaun McGrath
(303) 312-6532
McGrath.shaun@Epa.gov

Region 9 Acting Administrator Alexis Strauss
(415) 947-8000
Strauss.alexis@Epa.gov

Region 10 Administrator Dennis McLerran
(206) 553-1234
mclerran.dennis@epa.gov

For more info, contact Diane D’Arrigo at NIRS: dianed@nirs.org or 301-270-6477

http://org2.salsalabs.com/o/5502/t/0/blastContent.jsp?email_blast_KEY=1378216

http://www.nirs.org