US Supreme Court sides with federal agency on nuclear waste facility license
WASHINGTON, June 18 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday against the state of Texas and oil industry interests in their challenge to Nuclear Regulatory Commission authority to license certain nuclear waste storage facilities.
The 6-3 ruling, authored by conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh, reversed a lower court's decision declaring a license awarded by the NRC to a company called Interim Storage Partners to operate a nuclear waste storage in western Texas unlawful. The NRC is the federal agency that regulates nuclear energy in the United States.
The NRC issued a license in 2021 to Interim Storage Partners - a joint venture of France-based Orano and Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists - to build a nuclear waste storage facility in Andrews County in Texas, near the New Mexico border.
The U.S. government and the company had appealed the decision by the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the NRC lacked authority to issue the license based on a law called the Atomic Energy Act of 1954. The appeal was brought under Democratic former President Joe Biden and was continued under Republican President Donald Trump.
The government argued that Congress gave the NRC the authority to license temporary off-site nuclear waste storage facilities.
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 case brought by New Mexico subsequently was dismissed.
"To qualify as a party to a licensing proceeding, the Atomic Energy Act requires that one either be a license applicant or have successfully intervened in the licensing proceeding," Kavanaugh wrote in the ruling. "In this case, however, Texas and Fasken are not license applicants, and they did not successfully intervene in the licensing proceeding. So neither was a party eligible to obtain judicial review in the 5th Circuit," he wrote.
During March 5 arguments in the case, some of the Supreme Court's conservative justices seemed wary of the NRC's claim that the licensing arrangements at issue would be temporary. The license issued to Interim Storage Partners was set to last for 40 years, with the possibility of being renewed.
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 Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has limited the authority of various federal agencies including the Environment Protection Agency and Securities and Exchange Commission in various rulings in recent years. The court last year overturned its own 1984 precedent that had given deference to government agencies in interpreting laws they administer.
Since returning to the presidency in January, Trump has moved to dismantle various agencies as part of his campaign to slash the federal workforce and remake the government.
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