The Supreme Court on Wednesday will consider whether to clear the way for construction of a temporary nuclear waste storage site in the heart of Texas’ oil country.
The outcome of the consolidated cases — Nuclear Regulatory Commission v. Texas and Interim Storage Partners v. Texas — could determine not only where spent nuclear fuel can be stored in the absence of a permanent national repository, but also who can challenge specific final agency actions.
A federal appeals court in 2023 struck down a federal license for Interim Storage Partners’ planned facility in Texas’ Permian Basin after state Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) argued against authorizing a facility that would store thousands of metric tons of waste shipped from nuclear plants located hundreds of miles away.
The NRC has argued that the ruling from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals “disturbed the Commission’s authority to safely regulate nuclear materials by issuing such licenses — an authority that the Commission has exercised for more than 40 years.”
