Dive Summary:

• The license freeze is a result of a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals stating that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) had failed to properly examine future dangers of extended storage of used nuclear fuel at power reactor sites.
• The NRC will continue to review license applications in the meantime, even though no decisions on these applications will be made for the time being.
• At present, 28 license applications are being considered, all of which will remain on hold until the NRC completes a court-mandated environmental review.

From the article:

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted not issue final decisions on granting licenses to build new nuclear power plants or to grant license renewals to existing ones, pending resolution of the NRC's waste confidence rule, which was overturned by a court.

NRC commissioners ordered reviews of license applications to continue, however, and the agency's licensing board will not accept or deny any new challenges that might be filed during the proceedings related to nuclear waste storage issues. ...