State laws protect New Mexico despite SCOTUS nuclear storage ruling against Texas, experts say

By Patrick Lohmann | Source NM
Published on June 18, 2025

The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling Wednesday in favor of a company seeking to store nuclear waste in Texas has implications for neighboring New Mexico’s fight to prevent a similar facility being built here.

But the ruling does not mean New Mexicans should expect truckloads of radioactive material to arrive anytime soon, advocates and experts say.

The court ruled 6-3 that Texas and other parties did not have standing to challenge the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s decision to provide a permit to Interim Storage Partners. 

Camilla Feibelman, spokesperson for Rio Grande Sierra Club, said the ruling puts organizations like hers “in a fix” because it effectively removes the ability of any outside group or government body to intervene with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s permitting process. 

Florida-based company Holtec International is seeking to build a similar nuclear waste storage facility for 40 years in New Mexico in a rural site between Hobbs and Carlsbad, about 40 miles west of Interim Storage Partners’ proposed site in Texas.

In May 2023, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission awarded Holtec a license in New Mexico to “receive, possess, transfer and store 500 canisters holding approximately 8,680 metric tons of commercial spent nuclear fuel for 40 years.”

The Sierra Club sued the regulatory commission in federal court in a lawsuit still pending today. 

But Wednesday’s ruling in the Texas case sets a precedent that the organization cannot challenge the license in court, Feibelman said. 

“There’s basically never an opportunity to argue the merits of the licensure, and there’s no avenue for us to do that,” she said of the ruling. 

In a statement provided to Axios, a Holtec spokesperson said the ruling is a “significant win for the nuclear industry.” A spokesperson for Holtec did not respond to a request for comment from Source NM. 

Despite the ruling, Feibelman and Don Hancock, a decades-long anti-nuclear advocate in New Mexico with the Southwest Research and Information Center, said state and other protections remain that will provide a meaningful barrier to Holtec getting to build the facility in New Mexico. 

In the 2023 legislative session, New Mexico passed Senate Bill 53. The law bans state agencies from granting permits, contracts or leases for building a high-level nuclear waste storage facility. This would include New Mexico Department of Transportation and New Mexico Environment permits needed for construction and operations.

Hancock said that state is not affected by the Supreme Court ruling, and so it remains an effective way to stop Holtec. That was underscored in how Holtec responded to the ruling, he said.

“The press statement from Holtec did not say, ‘We’re going to proceed with our site in New Mexico,’” he said. “They didn’t say that because, I think they know they cannot proceed with the site in New Mexico.”

Hancock also described what he saw as unfavorable market conditions for Holtec, which he said cannot find customers to provide nuclear waste for it to store. 

Between the bad economics and the state’s opposition, Hancock said, “people in New Mexico are in the same place as we’ve been for several years,” even with the ruling. 

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham told Axios Wednesday that the state would continue to fight against more nuclear waste storage in New Mexico. 

“Holtec is not welcome in New Mexico, but we’ve been preparing for this, and I’ll do everything I can to prevent them from storing even more radioactive waste here,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement.

The Supreme Court ruling comes as President Donald Trump seeks to quickly increase domestic energy supply, including nuclear energy, by fast-tracking uranium mine sites. Several long-standing mines in New Mexico are now priority projects at the United States Forest Service or the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, though state regulators have told Source New Mexico their permitting structure is robust and a necessary step before any new mines can break ground. 

Three justices opposed the ruling, with Justice Neil Gorsuch authoring the dissent.