The Supreme Court rejected Texas’s bid to ax federal approval of a nuclear waste storage facility, arguing that the state did not have the right to bring its challenge in the first place.

In a 6-3 decision, the court in effect upheld the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s decision to issue a license to a company that wanted to store nuclear waste off site from a power plant. 

The opinion, authored by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, said that Texas, as well as private company  Fasken Land and Minerals did not have the right to sue over the license. 

“Under the Hobbs Act, only an aggrieved ‘party’ may obtain judicial review of a Commission licensing decision,” Kavanaugh wrote. “Texas and Fasken are not license applicants, and they did not successfully intervene in the licensing proceeding. So neither was a party eligible to obtain judicial review.”

Kavanaugh was joined by justices John Roberts, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Justices Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented.