Governor Michele Lujan Grisham of New Mexico has sent a letter, dated November 16, 2022, to President Biden in opposition to private plans for “interim” storage of highly radioactive commercial spent fuel in southeastern New Mexico.
See letter linked here: 2022-11-16-Governor-MLG-letter-to-POTUS-re-Holtec-International
Excerpt: “New Mexico has been doing more than its fair share to address the nation’s nuclear waste at WIPP and Los Alamos National Laboratory and will continue to do so. However, the federal government has a moral and legal responsibility to address storage and disposal of nuclear waste equitably and on the basis of consent. Until this private proposal is evaluated in consent-based framework, I urge you to order the NRC to suspend consideration of this license for Holtec to store nuclear waste in a state which has not consented and whose significant and substantial concerns have consistently been ignored.”
Such a facility is illegal under US law as no final repository for such high-level nuclear waste is available. But it appears the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Holtec may be able to skirt the law.
“Activists say Holtec filing violates nuclear waste law” – https://nukewatch.org/new-and-updated-item/activists-say-holtec-filing-violates-nuclear-waste-law/