On June 18, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Nuclear Regulatory Commission, et al. v. Texas, et al., reinstated a license originally issued by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), permitting the storage of depleted nuclear reactor fuel at a facility that does not house a nuclear power plant. The Court’s 6-3 decision authored by Justice Brett Kavanaugh reversed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which vacated the license when it found that the NRC did not have the statutory authority to allow private off-site storage of spent nuclear fuel.
The narrow holding in the case turns on a jurisdictional issue. The Court found that neither of the plaintiffs was a “party aggrieved” under the Hobbs Act — the statutory vehicle for challenging the NRC’s licensing decision — and the strict requirements for non-statutory ultra vires review were not satisfied. Therefore, the Court concluded that the plaintiffs were not eligible to seek judicial review of the licensing proceeding. While the Court did not ultimately resolve the merits of whether the NRC can license private stand-alone storage of spent nuclear fuel, in dicta it suggested that history and precedent support the NRC’s exercise of that authority.
In a dissenting opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, focused more on the merits of the plaintiffs’ claim. The dissent argued that the plain language of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act provides for the storage of spent nuclear fuel in two — and only two — places, at the site of each civilian nuclear reactor or at facilities owned by the federal government. The divided Court leaves open the possibility of revisiting the question of the scope of the NRC’s licensing authority for spent fuel storage locations.
For now, the Court’s decision will likely be seen as encouraging by the nuclear industry, particularly with the growth in development of small modular reactor technology that might be hampered if operators are required to store spent nuclear fuel on site indefinitely.
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