Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the consistency and compatibility of federal radiation standards, focusing on: (1) the various limits on public exposure to radiation; (2) the various protective strategies associated with the standards; and (3) whether the standards as a whole provide a coherent, complete federal framework for public radiation protection.

GAO found that: (1) the differences in federal agencies' limits on public exposure to radiation reflect a lack of consensus on what constitutes an acceptable radiation risk to the public; (2) the differing risk assessments and standards have resulted from different regulatory applications and technical methodologies; (3) because of the lack of consensus on calculation methods and radiation protection strategies, regulators cannot clearly assess the overall health impacts and cost-effectiveness of their radiation standards; (4) ineffective policy coordination has resulted in the lack of a uniform federal framework for protecting the public from radiation exposure, which in turn has led to the various radiation limits and protective strategies; (5) interagency disagreements over draft radiation regulations have delayed the completion of the regulations; (6) the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has drafted Presidential guidance on radiation protection to replace guidance from 1960 and has been working with other agencies on specific issues; and (7) EPA and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) are working to harmonize their respective calculation methodologies and protective strategies to avoid dual regulation.