Morning Briefing - June 19, 2025
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June 18, 2025

Insiders react to Supreme Court’s interim waste storage decision

By ExchangeMonitor

Interest groups and nuclear policy insiders have started to weigh in on a Wednesday decision by the U.S. Supreme Court effectively upholding a Nuclear Regulatory Commission license for a private interim waste storage facility in Texas.

When asked for a comment the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) simply said via email: “The Supreme Court decision upholds the NRC license issued to Interim Storage Partners [ISP] to construct and operate the ISP facility and explains why the NRC has this authority.”

“From a big picture” standpoint, “I think the majority got it right,” said Michael McBride, a partner with the Van Ness Feldman law firm. McBride, who focuses on environmental and nuclear regulatory matters, but was not involved in the litigation, spoke with Exchange Monitor briefly by phone Wednesday afternoon.

McBride, who touched on the case last week in a presentation to Exchange Monitor’s Radwaste Summit, said he had done only a hurried review of Wednesday’s ruling.

The court ruled 6-to-3 that Texas and Fasken Land & Minerals could not seek judicial review because they lacked aggrieved party status. At the same time, the majority was un-swayed by arguments by Fasken that NRC lacked authority to license private fuel storage away from nuclear reactor sites, McBride said.

Wednesday’s high court ruling is also welcome news for Holtec International’s plans to develop a similar interim storage site in New Mexico, McBride said in response to an Exchange Monitor question.

“We are disappointed,” said Wally Taylor, attorney for Sierra Club. “As a result of the Supreme Court decision new, allegedly-temporary nuclear waste dumps can proceed that are not designed to store waste forever, but will end up keeping it forever,” Taylor said in a press release from anti-nuclear groups.

“If this dangerous waste comes to Texas or New Mexico, it will likely never leave, creating de facto permanent dumps, at sites not designed for long term disposal,” said Tom “Smitty” Smith, former director of Public Citizen’s Texas Office. 

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