Texas’ top attorney is calling on the Supreme Court to stop a spent nuclear fuel storage project from moving forward in the Lone Star State’s oil-rich Permian Basin.
In a brief docketed Wednesday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, said a planned, privately run storage facility approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to house thousands of metric tons of spent fuel hundreds of miles away from any nuclear plants would threaten the state’s air, water and land.
“No statute mentions, let alone authorizes, private interim offsite storage. Instead, the only interim storage Congress has permitted is in federal facilities, and only under defined circumstances,” said Paxton.
“Because the Commission has created its own plan ‘without any legal basis,'” he added, “its actions cannot stand.”