Texas Solicitor General Aaron Nielson asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to reject a permit request for a temporary license for private aboveground nuclear waste storage, stating approving the request would be putting a “terrorist bullseye” on the oilfield. 

The state was defending a 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s grant of a private license to Interim Storage Partners to temporarily store the nuclear waste.

Nielson said that approving the request would be like "putting a permanent terrorist bull’s-eye on the nation’s most productive oil field." The comment resonated with the conservative justices on the court, the Washington Times reported.

Texas argued that Congress has already authorized Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the designated site for nuclear waste storage, even as plans for the storage has faced legal challenges. The state also argued the plans violated federal law.

“Yucca Mountain was supposed to be the permanent solution,” Justice Neil Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, said. “We spent something like $15 billion on it and it’s a hole in the ground.”

He also noted that the "temporary license" would last 40 years, which he claimed did not sound very "interim."

Deputy U.S. Solicitor General Malcolm Stewart doubled down on the argument that the storage would be temporary.

"The repository is intended to keep nuclear waste storage safely,” Stewart said. “Private enterprises are trying to come up with interim solutions to the nuclear waste storage dilemma.”

A final ruling on the case is expected to come in June.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.