The US Supreme Court ruled 6–3 that neither the State of Texas nor landowner Fasken Land and Minerals Ltd. can contest a federal license for a private interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in West Texas because they were not formal parties in the underlying Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) proceedings. Writing for the majority, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said the Hobbs Act limits judicial review of NRC licenses to entities that successfully intervened in the agency’s adjudication. Merely submitting comments or having an intervention request denied does not confer party status, the Court held, overturning a Fifth Circuit decision that had vacated the license. While the opinion stopped short of resolving the broader question of whether the NRC possesses statutory authority to license off-site storage, the majority devoted several pages to noting that “history and precedent” support such authority, offering comfort to an industry preparing for a planned expansion of US nuclear capacity. The decision tightens the path for future legal challenges to nuclear projects and is expected to accelerate investment in consolidated storage as utilities seek solutions for more than 90,000 metric tons of radioactive waste currently held at reactor sites nationwide.