At San Onofre — just yards from the shore break, on a bluff over the blue Pacific, in an active earthquake zone and close to 8 million residents — millions of pounds of waste are stranded, entombed in concrete, waiting for the federal government to figure out what the bloody heck to do with it.

The decision is the latest chapter in the decadeslong battle over what to do with the waste generated by the nation's nuclear power plants.

The Supreme Court ruled against Texas and landowners who challenged a plan to store thousands of metric tons of nuclear waste at a facility in the state.