US Supreme Court to consider nuclear waste storage dispute

The U.S. Supreme Court is set on Wednesday to consider whether the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has the authority to license nuclear waste storage facilities amid objections brought by the states of Texas and New Mexico as well as the oil industry.

The U.S. government and a company that was awarded a license by the NRC, the federal agency that regulates nuclear energy in the United States, to operate a facility in western Texas have appealed a lower court's ruling declaring this storage arrangement unlawful.

The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, showed skepticism toward the authority of federal regulatory agencies in several major rulings during former President Joe Biden's administration. The NRC case is being argued at a time when President Donald Trump's administration has taken aim at various federal agencies in his campaign to downsize and overhaul the U.S. government and fire thousands of workers. 

The NRC issued a license in 2021 to Interim Storage Partners to build a nuclear waste storage facility in Andrews County in Texas, near the New Mexico border. The NRC has issued such licenses to private companies since 1980.

A proposal to permanently store the nation's spent nuclear fuel at a federal facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada has been stalled following decades of opposition in that state.

The Interim Storage Partners license was challenged by Fasken Land and Minerals, a Texas-based oil and gas extraction organization, and the nonprofit Permian Basin Coalition of Land and Royalty Owners and Operators. Texas and New Mexico later joined the challenge, arguing the facility posed environmental risks to the states.

The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the NRC lacked authority to issue the license based on a law called the Atomic Energy Act of 1954. Biden's administration appealed the ruling at the Supreme Court and Trump's administration continued the appeal.

Biden's Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar argued in a December brief that the 5th Circuit ruling would "entirely gut" the Atomic Energy Act because nuclear power plants cannot operate without creating spent fuel that must be stored somewhere.

The Trump administration's acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris told the justices in February that the 5th Circuit decision could "deprive the commission of authority to license the private storage of spent nuclear fuel in any location" and "grind the operations of nuclear reactors to a halt."

The U.S. government also argues that the plaintiffs lacked authority to bring the lawsuit because they failed to participate in the agency's adjudication process.

Texas and New Mexico said the NRC had no authority to issue the license, and that Congress "has already legislated a solution to the nation's nuclear-waste problem: permanent storage in Yucca Mountain."

A ruling in the case is expected by the end of June.