Docket 23-1300
NRC
DecidedJun 18, 2025
6-3decision
Source: CourtListener.
Court blocks Texas and landowner from challenging federal license for private nuclear waste storage site
Impact5/10
What it does
The Court held that only those who are either the license applicant or who successfully intervened in a Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing proceeding qualify as "parties" entitled to seek judicial review of the Commission's final licensing decision under the Hobbs Act. Submitting public comments — including comments on a required environmental impact statement — does not confer party status. Because neither Texas nor Fasken Land and Minerals successfully intervened, they could not challenge the license in federal court.
Who benefits
Private companies that obtain licenses from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, who are now shielded from court challenges by states or neighboring landowners who did not successfully intervene in the licensing proceeding. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission itself benefits from reduced exposure to outside legal challenges to its licensing decisions.
Who is affected
State governments and private landowners near proposed nuclear facilities who submitted public comments during a licensing proceeding but were denied formal intervention — they cannot use those comments as a basis to challenge the final license in court. Organizations and individuals who participate in environmental review processes for nuclear projects but are excluded from the formal hearing process face the same restriction.
Practical impact
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's license allowing Interim Storage Partners to build and operate a private spent nuclear fuel storage facility in West Texas is reinstated, as the Fifth Circuit's decision vacating it is reversed. Going forward, states and landowners near proposed nuclear facilities who wish to preserve their right to challenge a license in court must successfully intervene in the Commission's formal licensing hearing — submitting public comments alone is not enough. Those denied intervention must pursue that specific denial through the courts (as Fasken did in the D.C. Circuit) and exhaust all appeals of the intervention ruling before the underlying license becomes unchallengeable by them.
Majority — Kavanaugh
Joined by: Roberts, Sotomayor, Kagan, Barrett, Jackson
The majority held that the Hobbs Act's use of the word "party" — rather than the broader word "person" used in the Administrative Procedure Act — means that only those who were formal participants before the agency can seek judicial review. The Court reasoned that the Atomic Energy Act specifically defines how someone becomes a party to a Commission licensing proceeding: they must either be the license applicant or be formally admitted through the intervention process. Simply submitting comments, even on a required environmental impact statement, is more like filing an amicus brief in court — it allows someone to share information, but does not make them a party. The Court also rejected Fasken's argument that it should have been granted intervention, noting that Fasken already challenged the denial of intervention in the D.C. Circuit, lost, and chose not to appeal further — that decision is final and cannot be relitigated here. Finally, the Court rejected the "ultra vires" theory (the idea that courts can review agency action that goes entirely beyond the agency's legal authority, even without a statutory right to sue), finding that Texas and Fasken's claims were ordinary statutory disputes dressed up as ultra vires arguments, and that an adequate path to judicial review already existed through the intervention process.
Dissent reasoning
In dissent, Justice Gorsuch argued that the Court's ruling allows the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to effectively insulate its own decisions from any outside court challenge by controlling who may participate in its internal hearing process. The dissent contended that the NRC's licensing proceeding was not limited to the formal Section 2239 hearing — it also included a mandatory environmental review in which Texas and Fasken actively participated as commenters, and which the agency itself incorporated into its final license decision. Because commenting in that environmental review process made Texas and Fasken parties to "proceedings before the agency preliminary to issuance" of the license, the dissent argued they qualify as "parties aggrieved" under the Hobbs Act. The dissent also argued that the underlying license was flatly unlawful: the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 expressly limits interim storage of spent nuclear fuel to reactor sites and federally owned facilities, and explicitly states that nothing in the law should be read to authorize storage at private, off-site locations like ISP's Texas facility. Justice Gorsuch wrote that the majority's procedural ruling effectively lets the agency "guard the henhouse" — by writing restrictive intervention rules, the NRC can exclude the public from its hearing, then use that exclusion to prevent anyone from challenging its decisions in court.
Constitutional question
Whether the State of Texas and a private landowner qualify as "parties aggrieved" under the Hobbs Act — and therefore may seek judicial review in a federal court of appeals — when they submitted public comments during a Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing proceeding but were never formally admitted as parties to that proceeding.