Facts of the Case

Provided by Oyez

The United States has grappled with nuclear waste storage since the 1940s, initially from weapons development and later from commercial nuclear power. While spent nuclear fuel was originally intended to be reprocessed, this proved impractical, leading Congress to pass the Nuclear Waste Policy Act in 1982. The Act designated Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the nation’s permanent underground repository and required the Department of Energy to begin accepting waste from states by 1998. However, amid strong opposition and delays, the Obama administration halted work on Yucca Mountain and established a Blue Ribbon Commission, which recommended a consent-based approach to siting storage facilities.

Following that shift in policy, Waste Control Specialists (as Interim Storage Partners) applied to build a nuclear waste storage facility in Andrews County, Texas. Despite opposition from Texas's governor and legislature, which passed a law prohibiting such storage, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a license in September 2021. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit vacated the license, holding that neither the Atomic Energy Act nor the Nuclear Waste Policy Act authorized the Commission to license private interim storage facilities.

Questions

  1. Can a nonparty challenge a federal agency’s “final order” under the Hobbs Act’s judicial review provision? 

  2. Do federal nuclear laws allow the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to license private companies to store spent nuclear fuel at off-reactor sites?

Conclusions

  1. A facility to store spent nuclear fuel at a private off-site location requires a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and only parties to the Commission’s licensing proceeding may obtain judicial review of the licensing decision under the Hobbs Act. Justice Brett Kavanaugh authored the 6-3 majority opinion of the Court.

    The Hobbs Act provides that any “party aggrieved” by a Commission licensing order may seek judicial review in federal court. The Atomic Energy Act establishes how one becomes a party to a Commission licensing proceeding: a person must either be the license applicant or successfully intervene by requesting a hearing and being admitted as a party by the Commission. Simply submitting comments on a draft environmental impact statement does not confer party status, just as filing an amicus brief in court does not make one a party to the case. When the Commission denies a petition to intervene, that decision itself is subject to judicial review, but the denied petitioner cannot later challenge the underlying licensing decision.

    The narrow exception for ultra vires review—where an agency acts entirely outside its delegated powers—does not apply here. This exception requires agency action that violates a specific statutory prohibition, not merely a disagreement about statutory interpretation. Additionally, ultra vires review is unavailable when adequate statutory review exists, as it does here through the ability to appeal intervention denials and, for successful intervenors, to challenge final licensing orders.

    Justice Neil Gorsuch authored a dissenting opinion, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, arguing that the Nuclear Waste Policy Act explicitly prohibits storage of spent nuclear fuel anywhere except at reactor sites or federally owned facilities, and that Texas and Fasken qualified as parties under the Hobbs Act because they participated in the environmental review portion of the NRC’s licensing proceeding.