Supreme Court steps into a fight over plans to store nuclear waste in rural Texas and New Mexico

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to step into a fight over plans to store nuclear waste at sites in rural Texas and New Mexico.

The justices said they will review a ruling by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that found that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission exceeded its authority under federal law in granting a license to a private company to store spent nuclear fuel at a dump in West Texas for 40 years. The outcome of the case will affect plans for a similar facility in New Mexico.

Political leaders in both states oppose the facilities.

Gov. Greg Abbott, R-Texas, has said his state “will not become America’s nuclear waste dumping ground.”

The push for temporary storage sites is part of the complicated politics of the nation’s so far futile quest for a permanent underground storage facility.

Roughly 100,000 tons (90,000 metric tons) of spent fuel, some of it dating from the 1980s, is piling up at current and former nuclear plant sites nationwide and growing by more than 2,000 tons a year. The waste was meant to be kept there temporarily before being deposited deep underground.

A plan to build a national storage facility northwest of Las Vegas at Yucca Mountain has been mothballed because of staunch opposition from most Nevada residents and officials.

There are two issues before the justices in a case that will be argued early next year.

The NRC contends that the states forfeited their right to object to the licensing decisions because they declined to join in the commission’s proceedings.

Two other federal appeals courts, in Denver and Washington, that weighed the same issue ruled for the agency. Only the 5th Circuit allowed the cases to proceed.

The second issue is whether federal law allows the commission to license temporary storage sites. Texas and environmental groups, unlikely allies, both relied on a 2022 Supreme Court decision that held that Congress must act with specificity when it wants to give an agency the authority to regulate on an issue of major national significance.