The Supreme Court is caught in a dispute over plans to store nuclear waste in rural Texas and New Mexico

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed Friday to intervene in a dispute over plans to store nuclear waste at sites in rural Texas and New Mexico.

The justices said they would review a ruling by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that found the Nuclear Regulatory Commission exceeded its authority under federal law when it granted a private company a license to store spent nuclear fuel at a landfill in West Texas granted for 40 years. The outcome of the case will impact plans for a similar facility in New Mexico.

Political leaders in both states oppose the facilities.

Gov. Greg Abbott, R-Texas, said his state “will not become America’s nuclear waste dump.”

The push for temporary storage sites is part of the complicated politics of the country's so-far futile search for a permanent underground storage facility.

Around 100,000 tons (90,000 metric tons) of spent nuclear fuel, some dating back to the 1980s, are piling up at current and former nuclear power plant sites nationwide, growing by more than 2,000 tons annually. The waste was supposed to be stored there temporarily before being dumped deep underground.

A plan to build a national storage facility northwest of Las Vegas on Yucca Mountain has been shelved due to staunch opposition from most Nevada residents and officials.

In a case scheduled to be heard early next year, the justices face two questions.

The NRC contends that states forfeited their right to appeal the licensing decisions because they refused to follow the Commission's process.

Two other federal appeals courts in Denver and Washington that considered the same question ruled in favor of the agency. Only the 5th District allowed the cases to continue.

The second question is whether federal law allows the commission to license temporary storage sites. Texas and environmental groups, unlikely allies, both relied on a 2022 Supreme Court decision that said Congress must act specifically if it wants to give an agency the power to regulate a matter of great national importance.

In its decision for Texas, the 5th Circuit agreed that what to do with the nation's nuclear waste was an “important question” that Congress should address directly.

The Biden administration told the court that the commission has long had authority under the 1954 Atomic Energy Act to deal with nuclear waste.

The NRC granted Interim Storage Partners LLC the Texas license for a facility that could hold up to 5,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel from power plants and 231 million tons of other radioactive waste. The facility would be built next to an existing landfill in Andrews County for low-level radioactive waste, such as protective clothing and other material that has been exposed to radiation. The Andrews County site is approximately 350 miles (563.27 kilometers) west of Dallas, near the Texas-New Mexico state line.

New Mexico officials, led by Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, are opposing a license the commission granted to Holtec International for a similar temporary storage site in Lea County, in the southeastern part of the state, near Carlsbad. The 5th Circuit also blocked that license.

A decision is expected by the middle of next year.