A Bad Supreme Court Decision Paves the Way for Radioactive Waste Storage in the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico

The great problem with nuclear energy, hidden from the public as often as possible by the federal government and special interests, is the quantities of radioactive waste nuclear reactors produce.

Nearly 100,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel rods are stored at the sites of 92 open and 42 closed nuclear power plants in the country and about 2,000 tons a year are added to the piles. Plans for a permanent federal storage site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada are mired in controversy and effective opposition. Two private firms have proposed storage sites in the Permian Basin, one in Texas, the other 40 miles away in New Mexico. One sits directly on top of the Oglala Aquifer, which provides water for millions in eight states from South Dakota to west Texas and New Mexico; the other sits immediately adjacent to the aquifer.  In plain language, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act allows storage of nuclear waste either at nuclear reactor sites or at sites owned by the federal government. Environmental groups believe there is a high probability that the federal government will change the designations from temporary to permanent sites after their 40-year licenses expire.

Ninety percent of nuclear reactors are in the eastern half of the nation; the two proposed sites would generate up to 10,000 trips by road, rail or waterway of highly radioactive cargo called by residents along their routes things like “Mobile Chornobyl,” “Floating Fukushima,” “Dirty Bomb on Wheels,” and “Mobile X-ray Machine That Can’t Be Turned Off.”

In the words of Haul No!, an indigenous group based in Albuquerque, “The Southwest is under attack! Nuclear colonialism, via this push for new development of both energy and weapons, is threatening our communities…”

The U.S. Supreme Court decided on June 18 that the Texas storage project, presented as a temporary site, could receive nuclear reactor waste despite the language of the federal nuclear waste act. This decision paves the way for the further development of the New Mexico site.

The state of Texas and a large Permian Basin landowner had sued the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the NRC appealed the federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision in favor of the state. Six justices, Kavanaugh, Roberts, Sotomayor, Kagan, Barrett, and Jackson voted to reverse the appeals court’s decision; Gorsuch, Alito, and Thomas dissented.

Associate Justice Kavanaugh wrote the majority opinion, arguing that Texas and the landowner lacked standing to bring the suit, ignoring entirely the substance of the case, whether nuclear waste could be stored on a privately owned site against the words and meaning of the act.  

Associate Justice Gorsuch, son of Reagan Era EPA Administrator Anne Gorsuch, argued at length and cogently that these sites violated the law and were environmentally dangerous.

Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear’s radioactive waste specialist, said: “Even though SCOTUS has upheld the NRC license for ISP’s dump, we still hope to stop it, and Holtec’s dump as well, from going forward. After all, we were previously able to stop a very similar dump of Holtec’s and the nuclear power industry’s from going forward in Utah, on the Skull Valley Goshutes Indian Reservation, despite NRC having licensed it, and the federal courts having upheld that NRC license as well.”

Beyond Nuclear also announced that it would continue legal action against the New Mexico site: “We have raised the right issues in the right court,” said Diane Curran, co-counsel for Beyond Nuclear. “We look forward to resuming our litigation in the D.C. Circuit, where we will demonstrate that the law unequivocally prohibits Holtec’s private storage of federally owned spent fuel.”

Both Elan Musk’s DOGE boys and Trump’s executive orders this year have significantly weakened the NRC’s ability to function effectively. These actions are part of a campaign that began several years ago to reopen and develop new uranium mines on the Colorado Plateau, reopen and develop new uranium processing mills in the West, successful legislation to make it illegal for nuclear reactor operators to buy Russian uranium processed for reactor use, and a new generation of nuclear warheads, among other developments in the nuclear industry. But staff damage can be repaired by later administrations and executive orders can be fought in court or reversed by later administrations. 

The post A Bad Supreme Court Decision Paves the Way for Radioactive Waste Storage in the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico appeared first on CounterPunch.org.