To the editor:

(Plain Press April 2026) This is what I posted on the Department of Energy’s comment page after a dozen rewrites, on the Categorical (Safety) Exclusions for new reactors:

President Trump’s Executive Order 14300 prompting the Categorical Exclusion for Advanced Nuclear Reactors calls for abandoning the Linear No Threshold (LNT) standard for radiation protection ignoring established scientific fact that even small doses of radiation can double the risk of cancer for children, women and pregnancies.

In 2021 The NRC reaffirmed the LNT standard but after the publication of Project 2025 President Trump obediently moved to restrict the NRC role of regulation by removing what the Heritage Foundation declared it being, a “…significant cost and regulatory barrier to new nuclear power” and “overly prescriptive rather than outcomes focused.” (Mandate for Leadership, Chapter 12, pages 408, 409)

This is a political decision unrelated to scientific information, of which there has been purposeful avoidance by the federal government since the cancellation of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) study by the NRC in 2015. Thus, there have been no updated health assessments since the 1990s. However, recently the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health national study of all U.S. counties from 2000-2018 revealed that, controlling for socioeconomic and lifestyle factors, counties closer to operational nuclear reactors were linked to elevated cancer death rates, especially for older adults.

In a notice in the Federal Register, the Energy Department stated that the new reactors have “key attributes such as safety features, fuel types, and fission product inventory that limit adverse consequences from releases of radioactive or hazardous material from construction, operation, and decommissioning.” reflecting the industry’s repeated declaration of these reactors’ inherent safety. This is a bold assertion since these reactors exist mainly on paper and are just now being built.

The justification for the rush to build these new reactors is that the data centers need the power. It sets that need above citizens’ safety. I live in a county where at least one data center has been sited, and where plenty of open industrially zoned land exists. The massive power requirements of data centers threaten the reliability of electricity to residents. This has prompted some data centers to propose building their own power source with small modular reactors. That would not be a beneficial outcome for the communities around it. In my county the provider of electricity is First Energy which has applied to the PUCO for relief from its strict limitations on the length of power outages. The reality of prioritizing the needs of data centers over the safety of communities should be troubling to everyone.

What does “inherently safe” mean when it is openly acknowledged that these new reactors will still release radioactivity and that there is no safe dose of radiation?

What does “inherently safe” mean when officials at the Idaho National Lab “had extensively rewritten internal rules for the new test reactors?” The new rules softened protections for groundwater and the environment. For example, rules that once said the environment “must” be protected, now say consideration “may be given to avoiding or minimizing, if practical, potential adverse impacts.” (Trump exempts new nuclear reactors from environmental review: NPR)

If these new reactors are “inherently safe” why is it necessary to raise the limit of radiation exposure to the public?

Please maintain LNT standards, fund independent research, and restore evidence-based regulation.

Daryl Davis

Cleveland