Pick Your Poison – Nuclear Waste or Tobacco
- Robert Sanger
- Jun 20
- 1 min read
The United States Supreme Court continues to offload its more “routine” cases with new opinions. In NRC v. Texas, two days ago, the Court found that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission could license a controversial proposed nuclear waste storage facility while denying the State of Texas and a private land and minerals business to intervene since they were not parties. Yet, today in FDA v. Reynolds Vapor Co., the court found that the FDA could not deny applications for new vape cigarettes under the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act because they did not allow tobacco retailers – who were not parties – to intervene.
It is a matter of statutory interpretation but it is hard to notice that non-parties cannot object to burying nuclear waste while the door is wide open to objections to restricting the tobacco industry.