The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit said no to NextEra Energy Inc. on a claim for a $97 million tax deduction for $200 million the company paid in contract fees to the federal government’s Nuclear Waste Fund.

“NextEra makes its claims for a tax refund based on the tax code’s treatment of net operating losses. A net operating loss exists whenever a taxpayer has more available deductions in a given year than the taxpayer is allowed to take,” Judge Beverly Martin wrote in an opinion Thursday, joined by Eleventh Circuit Judge Julie Carnes and Sixth Circuit Judge Ronald Lee Gilman, sitting by designation.