I guess I am more optimistic than you. Trump is someone who will stop at nothing to get his way. Sure, the wording is not perfect. But the intent is clear, and if the NRC wants to have a budget, and keep its current leadership, they should follow our fearless leader.
I think what he has done to the rule of law is criminal (literally). I'm not advocating his approach. Just commenting on the reality of it.
Who: New Boss, same as the Old Boss. Not quite accurate but not too far wrong, so far. Hopefully, the hammer tapping will continue until the glass shatters. Then New Boss, will give LNT the toss.
Thank you for your on-point essay, Jack. Please ensure that Energy Secretary Chris Wright is emailed a copy. His email is The.Secretary@hq.doe.gov
University of Massachusetts at Amherst Toxicology Professor Ed Calabrese has written extensively regarding the scientific misconduct of Hermann Muller in conjunction with establishing the LNT hypothesis. Here's a review article "Muller letter reveals scientific scandal that discredits evidence used to support LNT," Calabrese and Giordano, 3 November 2023, Chemico-Biological Interactions.
That sounds like LNT is unequivocally out, though I don't know what teeth there are to hold the NRC and EPA accountable, if they continue using it in violation of this order (which I entirely expect they will).
Sadly, special interests have repeatedly propped up the LNT hypothesis when scientists have challenged its scientific validity. The first special interest to promote the LNT hypothesis was the Rockefeller Foundation, which derived its wealth from fossil energy. See this 2014 post from Rod Adams published by the American Nuclear Society:
"Motives for pushing a no-threshold dose radiation risk model (LNT) in 1955-56,"
Tue, Aug 26, 2014, 1:57PM ANS Nuclear Cafe
Dr. Edward Calabrese recently published a paper titled The Genetics Panel of the NAS BEAR I Committee (1956): epistolary evidence suggests self‐interest may have prompted an exaggeration of radiation risks that led to the adoption of the LNT cancer risk assessment model.
Abstract: This paper extends a series of historical papers which demonstrated that the linear-no-threshold (LNT) model for cancer risk assessment was founded on ideological-based scientific deceptions by key radiation genetics leaders. Based on an assessment of recently uncovered personal correspondence, it is shown that some members of the United States (US) National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Biological effects of Atomic Radiation I (BEAR I) Genetics Panel were motivated by self-interest to exaggerate risks to promote their science and personal/professional agenda. Such activities have profound implications for public policy and may have had a significant impact on the adoption of the LNT model for cancer risk assessment.
This new work was inspired when Calabrese found a 2007 history of science dissertation by Michael W. Seltzer titled The technological infrastructure of science. One facet of the paper is to explain how self-interest can create biases that affect scientific conclusions, policy setting, and public communications. Identical measurements and observations can be used to support dramatically different reports depending on what the scientists are attempting to accomplish.
That is especially true when there is difficulty at the margins of measurement where it is not easy to discern "signal" from "noise." The risk of agenda-driven conclusions has become greater as the scientific profession has expanded far beyond the sporadically funded idealists motivated by a pure search for knowledge, and into an occupation that provides "good jobs" with career progression, regular travel opportunities, political influence, and good salaries.
On the other hand, their efforts on the committee illustrate one component of the technological infrastructure of genetics outside of the laboratory: the increasing significance of large-scale laboratories, federal funding agencies, policy-making committees, and government regulatory bodies as critical components of the technological infrastructure of science. Clearly, how the science of genetics was to advance into the future would have much to do with traditionally non-epistemic factors, in addition to epistemic ones.
Finally, in considering all these themes together, it is difficult to conclude that there is any sharp separation between the practice of science and the practice of politics (in the Foucauldian sense of power/knowledge). Rouse's view of the intra-twining of epistemology and power, his view of epistemic politics, is pertinent here. The practice of science was at times the playing of politically epistemic games, whether at the level of argumentation in the contestable theoretical disputes of population genetics, at the level of science policy-making, as with the various organizations and committees responding to the scientific and political controversies surrounding the efforts to establish exposure guidelines in the light of concerns over fallout from atomic testing, or with the planning of the future infrastructure of experimentation based on funding opportunities.
(Seltzer 2007, p. 307-308)......The Rockefeller Foundation was, and remains, interested in maintaining the dominance of oil and natural gas in our energy supply system. Those fuels were the source of the largess that the foundation has been able to give for more than 100 years.
Jack: I respectfully disagree with you. Rod Adams's "Smoking Gun" archive documents multiple instances of fossil interests exercising franchise protection to the detriment of the growth of nuclear power in the United States. https://atomicinsights.com/smoking-gun/ The record covers about seven decades.
I guess I am more optimistic than you. Trump is someone who will stop at nothing to get his way. Sure, the wording is not perfect. But the intent is clear, and if the NRC wants to have a budget, and keep its current leadership, they should follow our fearless leader.
I think what he has done to the rule of law is criminal (literally). I'm not advocating his approach. Just commenting on the reality of it.
I have a lot of confidence in Chris Wright as well. He understands science and has low tolerance for BS.
Keep on preaching Jack, the choir is listening.
Yes, we need to remove LNT and ALARA from all NRC regulations now.
But at least this a step in the right direction.
We need congress to codify it.
Who: New Boss, same as the Old Boss. Not quite accurate but not too far wrong, so far. Hopefully, the hammer tapping will continue until the glass shatters. Then New Boss, will give LNT the toss.
Thank you for your on-point essay, Jack. Please ensure that Energy Secretary Chris Wright is emailed a copy. His email is The.Secretary@hq.doe.gov
University of Massachusetts at Amherst Toxicology Professor Ed Calabrese has written extensively regarding the scientific misconduct of Hermann Muller in conjunction with establishing the LNT hypothesis. Here's a review article "Muller letter reveals scientific scandal that discredits evidence used to support LNT," Calabrese and Giordano, 3 November 2023, Chemico-Biological Interactions.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0009279723004544 The article is available for download as a PDF via this link.
Nuclear power advocates need to keep the pressure up to discard the LNT hypothesis.
Sec 4(a) of the following order (https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/05/restoring-gold-standard-science/) reads: "Employees shall not engage in scientific misconduct nor knowingly rely on information resulting from scientific misconduct."
That sounds like LNT is unequivocally out, though I don't know what teeth there are to hold the NRC and EPA accountable, if they continue using it in violation of this order (which I entirely expect they will).
Sadly, special interests have repeatedly propped up the LNT hypothesis when scientists have challenged its scientific validity. The first special interest to promote the LNT hypothesis was the Rockefeller Foundation, which derived its wealth from fossil energy. See this 2014 post from Rod Adams published by the American Nuclear Society:
"Motives for pushing a no-threshold dose radiation risk model (LNT) in 1955-56,"
Tue, Aug 26, 2014, 1:57PM ANS Nuclear Cafe
Dr. Edward Calabrese recently published a paper titled The Genetics Panel of the NAS BEAR I Committee (1956): epistolary evidence suggests self‐interest may have prompted an exaggeration of radiation risks that led to the adoption of the LNT cancer risk assessment model.
Abstract: This paper extends a series of historical papers which demonstrated that the linear-no-threshold (LNT) model for cancer risk assessment was founded on ideological-based scientific deceptions by key radiation genetics leaders. Based on an assessment of recently uncovered personal correspondence, it is shown that some members of the United States (US) National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Biological effects of Atomic Radiation I (BEAR I) Genetics Panel were motivated by self-interest to exaggerate risks to promote their science and personal/professional agenda. Such activities have profound implications for public policy and may have had a significant impact on the adoption of the LNT model for cancer risk assessment.
This new work was inspired when Calabrese found a 2007 history of science dissertation by Michael W. Seltzer titled The technological infrastructure of science. One facet of the paper is to explain how self-interest can create biases that affect scientific conclusions, policy setting, and public communications. Identical measurements and observations can be used to support dramatically different reports depending on what the scientists are attempting to accomplish.
That is especially true when there is difficulty at the margins of measurement where it is not easy to discern "signal" from "noise." The risk of agenda-driven conclusions has become greater as the scientific profession has expanded far beyond the sporadically funded idealists motivated by a pure search for knowledge, and into an occupation that provides "good jobs" with career progression, regular travel opportunities, political influence, and good salaries.
On the other hand, their efforts on the committee illustrate one component of the technological infrastructure of genetics outside of the laboratory: the increasing significance of large-scale laboratories, federal funding agencies, policy-making committees, and government regulatory bodies as critical components of the technological infrastructure of science. Clearly, how the science of genetics was to advance into the future would have much to do with traditionally non-epistemic factors, in addition to epistemic ones.
Finally, in considering all these themes together, it is difficult to conclude that there is any sharp separation between the practice of science and the practice of politics (in the Foucauldian sense of power/knowledge). Rouse's view of the intra-twining of epistemology and power, his view of epistemic politics, is pertinent here. The practice of science was at times the playing of politically epistemic games, whether at the level of argumentation in the contestable theoretical disputes of population genetics, at the level of science policy-making, as with the various organizations and committees responding to the scientific and political controversies surrounding the efforts to establish exposure guidelines in the light of concerns over fallout from atomic testing, or with the planning of the future infrastructure of experimentation based on funding opportunities.
(Seltzer 2007, p. 307-308)......The Rockefeller Foundation was, and remains, interested in maintaining the dominance of oil and natural gas in our energy supply system. Those fuels were the source of the largess that the foundation has been able to give for more than 100 years.
Gene,
You need to revisit the actual history of Big Oil in the 60's and 70's.
https://gordianknotbook.com/download/nuclear-power-and fossil-fuel
Attempts to blame nuclear's 10 fold increase in cost in the 70's on Big Oil
is revisionist history and a counterproductive distraction from the real problem.
Jack: I respectfully disagree with you. Rod Adams's "Smoking Gun" archive documents multiple instances of fossil interests exercising franchise protection to the detriment of the growth of nuclear power in the United States. https://atomicinsights.com/smoking-gun/ The record covers about seven decades.
Adams is flat wrong about Big Oil.
Read my piece.
The only semi-concrete evidence that Rod offers on Big Oil
is Robert O Anderson's contribution to the John Muir Institute
(not Friends of the earth). That contribution is discussed in depth
in the piece.
Big Oil made a massive bet on nuclear and took an equally massive hit
when nuclear flopped in the 1970's.
We must get passed this distraction and focus on nuclear's real problem.