It's the latest flashpoint in a decades-long battle to find a home for the nation's nuclear waste and it's being waged by unlikely allies and competing interests in the hamlets north of New York City in the shadow of Indian Point's nuclear reactors and in the oil and gas fields of New Mexico.
In New Mexico, anti-nuclear groups and environmentalists have joined with the oil and gas industry in the Permian Basin to prevent Holtec from building an interim site midway between Carlsbad and Hobbs to store the nation's waste.
And in New York, local officials eager to find new uses for the Indian Point site have squared off against environmental groups who think it might be safest to keep the spent fuel there.