NEW ORLEANS: A US appeals court on Friday cancelled a licence granted by a federal agency to a company to build a temporary nuclear waste storage facility in western Texas, which the Republican-led state has argued would be dangerous to build in one of the nation’s largest oil basins.
A three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals found that the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission lacked the authority under federal law to issue permits for private, temporary nuclear waste storage sites.
The licence, which was issued in 2021 to project developer Interim Storage Partners LLC, was challenged by Texas as well as West Texas oil and gas interests that opposed the facility.
US Circuit judge James Ho, writing for the court, agreed with Texas that the Atomic Energy Act does not give the agency the broad authority “to licence a private, away-from-reactor storage facility for spent nuclear fuel.”
Ho, an appointee of former Republican President Donald Trump, said a licence for that kind of a facility also conflicts with a US law called the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which prioritises permanent storage solutions and otherwise allows temporary storage of nuclear waste only at reactors themselves or at federal sites.
Representatives for the NRC, Texas governor Greg Abbott’s office, and the developer did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Abbott and other state officials had petitioned the court in 2021 to review the order by the agency authorising Interim Storage Partners to receive and store up to 5,000 metric tonnes of spent fuel and about 230 metric tonnes of low-level radioactive waste for 40 years at a planned repository in Andrews County, Texas.
Abbott opposed the plan, saying he would not let Texas become “America’s nuclear waste dumping ground.”
The plan for a temporary facility was devised in order to address a growing nuclear waste problem in the US. The Andrews County site was chosen after efforts to build a permanent storage facility in Nevada fell apart amid fierce local opposition. – Reuters
