Petitioners
State of New York; County of Allegany, New York; County of Cortland, New York
Respondent
United States et al.
Petitioners' Claim
That the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Act Amendments of 1985, which regulatedstates' management of nuclear waste, violated the Tenth Amendment's reservation of powers for the states, as well as the Guarantee Clause of the Constitution.
Chief Lawyer for Petitioners
Peter H. Schiff, Deputy Solicitor General of New York
Chief Lawyer for Respondent
Wallace, U.S. Deputy Solicitor General
Justices for the Court
Anthony M. Kennedy, Sandra Day O'Connor (writing for the Court), William H. Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, David H. Souter, Clarence Thomas
Justices Dissenting
Harry A. Blackmun, John Paul Stevens, Byron R. White
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
19 June 1992
Decision
That two of the act's three incentives to encourage compliance with federal waste-management laws were constitutional under the Commerce Clause; but thata third provision punishing non-compliance was unconstitutional, because it violated the Tenth Amendment.
Significance
This case addressed the constitutional principles of sovereignty and severability. The Tenth Amendment reserves for the states all powers not delegated tothe federal government, but in the century preceding the New York decision, the Court had tended to favor the federal government in Tenth-Amendment cases. The New York ruling placed limitations on both federal and state power. Less obvious was the relevance of the case to severability or separability, which is the idea that the Court can invalidate certain portions ofa statute but leave others intact.
Radioactive Waste
"We live in a world full of low level radioactive waste," Justice O'Connor wrote in the Supreme Court's New York v. United States ruling. As she observed, such waste comes from "luminous watch dials, smoke alarms, measurement devices, medical fluids, research materials, and the protective gear and construction materials used by workers at nuclear power plants." Industry produces such waste, as do hospitals, research institutions, and governments. Thatwaste is most often buried in the ground at specific dumping sites. Few people choose to have such a site near them, since the waste is harmful to the environment and to human health.
In 1962, Congress established the first dumping site for low-level radioactive waste in Beatty, Nevada. During the next decade, it set up five more sites,in Maxey Flats, Kentucky; West Valley, New York; Hanford, Washington; Sheffield, Illinois; and Barnwell, South Carolina. Between 1975 and 1978, three ofthe sites--in Illinois, Kentucky, and New York permanently closed. This leftonly the Nevada, Washington, and South Carolina dumps, to which the rest of the country shipped its waste. The two western sites shut down temporarily in1979, and the governors of Nevada and Washington announced plans for permanent shutdowns. Thus, South Carolina was to be left to bear the burden for the entire nation. In response to the situation, that state's governor ordered theBarnwell site to accept half of the waste it had previously received.
Congress was compelled to act, so in 1980, following a set of recommendationssubmitted to it by the National Governors' Association (NGA), it passed theLow-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act. The act held each state responsible for dealing with its own radioactive waste, which could be done "most safely and efficiently . . . on a regional basis." Therefore it authorized states tomake regional compacts for waste disposal, but it did not penalize states whofailed to participate in such compacts. By 1985, only three compacts had been approved--and these had been formed around the existing "sited states" of South Carolina, Nevada, and Washington. Not surprisingly, other states had been reluctant to create sites, and 31 states not covered by regional compacts would have no available place to dump their wastes.
Based on a proposal submitted by the NGA, the 1985 act proposed a compromise:the three sited states would continue to accept the rest of the nation's waste for seven more years, until 1992, by which time the states not covered byregional compacts would be expected to make other arrangements for their waste disposal. "The mechanics of this compromise," Justice O'Connor wrote, "areintricate," and involved a graduated surcharge system whereby the cost of dumping by non-sited states would increase with time: $10 per cubit foot in 1986-87; $20 in 1988-89; and $40 in 1990-92. Under the act, states had three forms of incentive to comply with the statute's requirement that they develop their own arrangements for waste disposal. The first of these was monetary: theU.S. secretary of energy would collect one-quarter of the surcharges collected by the sited states in an escrow account, from which the states who complied would receive payments. The second incentive involved access--specifically,the denial of access to waste-disposal sites for non-sited states (i.e., states without any compact agreement), and graduated surcharges for each periodin which they failed to make the necessary steps for compliance. Then there was the third incentive, the "take-title provision," which the Court would later deem "the most severe." If a state failed to provide for disposal, eitherwithin its borders or through a regional compact, by 1 January 1996, it wouldbe required to "take title to the waste." The act further provided that thestate would "be obligated to take possession of the waste, and shall be liable for all damages directly or indirectly incurred . . . as a consequence of the failure of the State to take possession of the waste . . . " This could potentially cost states large sums of money, not only for the waste disposal itself, but from claims against states by entities wishing to dispose of such waste.
In the years from 1985 to 1992, Congress approved nine regional compacts, covering 42 of the states. In a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court, the federal government explained that New York was a state that generated "a relatively large share of the Nation's low level radioactive waste," but had not joined a regional compact. Instead, it had identified five potential dumping sites, three in Allegany County and two in Cortland County. Residents of those countiesopposed the state's plan, so New York and the two counties filed suit againstthe United States in 1990. The states of Washington, Nevada, and South Carolina also included themselves as defendants. The district court dismissed thecomplaint, and the petitioners appealed. They had originally raised a numberof constitutional challenges to the act, but by the time the case reached theSupreme Court, their opposition rested on the Tenth Amendment and the Guarantee Clause, which holds in part that "The United States shall guarantee to every State of this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against invasion . . . "
Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal of the lower court's ruling were filed by officials representing the states of Arizona, Arkansas, California, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Texas, West Virginia, and Wisconsin; for the territory of Guam; and for the Council of State Government. Briefs urging affirmance were filed by the American College of Nuclear Physicians et al., the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL/CIO), and the Rocky Mountain Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact.Briefs were also filed by the states of Connecticut and Michigan, and US Ecology, Inc.
"Take-Title" Provision
The Court voted unanimously to uphold the first two forms of incentive, and by a vote of 6-3 it ruled that the "take- title" incentive was unconstitutional. Justice O'Connor, writing for the Court, noted that it had used as its standards the affirmative grants to Congress contained in the Commerce and Spending Clauses of Article I, as well as the principle of state sovereignty embodied in the Tenth Amendment.
The constitutionality of congressional authority over interstate disposal oflow-level radioactive waste had been established in Philadelphia v. New Jersey (1978). But a review of other Court decisions such as Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Assn., Inc. (1981)--not to mention an examination of the concerns raised by the Framers at the ConstitutionalConvention--offered a counterbalancing claim. Specifically, as Justice O'Connor wrote, Congress lacked the power to "commandeer the States' legislative processes by directly compelling them to enact and enforce a federal regulatoryprogram"; rather, it was incumbent on Congress to "exercise legislative authority directly upon individuals." In spite of that, methods existed whereby Congress could "urge" a state, without coercion, to comply with a federal program. It could use its spending power to influence a state's actions by attaching conditions on the dispensing of federal funds, a principle upheld in South Dakota v. Dole (1987). Also, in a situation where Congress had regulatory authority over private activity under the Commerce Clause, it could offer to the states the choice of either regulating their activities according to federal standards, or of having their laws pre-empted by the federal government.
The petitioners had put forth an argument regarding the portion of the act which required states to deal with their own radioactive waste problems, an idea which Justice O'Connor rejected. That provision, the petitioners claimed, was a direct order from Congress to the states, and could be viewed as such byseparating it from the rest of the act. Justice O'Connor held, however, thatthe clause in question was not a "separable mandate." Viewed on its own, theclause would clearly constitute a violation of the balance between federal and state powers, and would thus raise another issue; but Justice O'Connor held that it could not be viewed on its own. Rather, the act should be construed"as a whole to comprise three sets of incentives to the States."
The Court next dealt with the first of these incentives. In establishing themonetary incentive, the Court ruled, Congress acted "well within" its authority under the Commerce and Spending Clauses, and thus the Tenth Amendment hadnot been violated in that particular instance. By authorizing sited states toplace surcharges on radioactive waste, Congress was simply enabling interstate commerce, and the collection of a percentage of that charge by the Secretary of Energy was "no more than a federal tax on interstate commerce, which petitioners do not claim to be an invalid exercise of either Congress' commerceor taxing power." Furthermore, the monetary incentive met the four requirements established in Dole. As for the claim by the petitioners that theescrow account arrangement was "nonfederal" because it collected funds separately from various states, rather than doing so in a blanket fashion, the Court responded that nothing in the Spending Clause prevented this. In any case,by choosing to comply or not, states were free to control whether or not theypaid into the account or received a refund for compliance.
The access incentives were constitutional as well, as they were "a conditional exercise of Congress' commerce power along the lines of that approved in Hodel," and thus did not violate the Tenth Amendment either. Once again,states had a choice: they could either comply with regulations, or they could be denied access to disposal sites. In no way did Congress force them to regulate their waste disposal, make any expenditures, or participate in any federal program.
The third incentive, the one labeled "take-title," was more problematic. The"choice" it offered--of either taking title to the waste and the resulting liabilities, or of complying with the federal program, was coercive and hence forbidden under the Tenth Amendment. By forcing waste-generators (e.g. industry) to transfer their waste to the state, and by requiring states to become liable for the waste, Congress was attempting to "commandeer" the states into compliance with a federal program. Likewise the requirement that states had toregulate waste in accordance with federal direction was unconstitutional aswell. The "choice" offered in the take-title provision, Justice O'Connor wrote, "is no choice at all." Hence, the Court ruled this provision invalid.
Justice O'Connor dealt with several arguments raised by the respondents. Thefederal government had claimed that there were limited situations in which itwas permissible for Congress to coerce states, but the Court rejected this and similar propositions. Likewise the Court rejected the sited states' contention that the act could not be ruled an unconstitutional infringement on NewYork's sovereignty because officials of that state had been given the opportunity to challenge the act's passage and had not; in fact, they had supportedit. Consent of state officials, Justice O'Connor suggested, was irrelevant, "since the Constitution protects state sovereignty for the benefit of individuals, not States or their governments, and since the officials' interests maynot coincide with the Constitution's allocation."
The Court held that the act did not violate the Guarantee Clause because nothing in it "c[ould] be reasonably said to deny New York a republican form of government." Up to this point, the ruling had concerned itself with sovereignty, but the Court concluded by establishing the severability of the act, whereby the "take-title" clause could be removed in order to preserve the constitutionality of the rest of the statute. The guideline for severability was thatif a part of a law could be removed from the rest without defeating the purpose of the larger statute, then it was severable. (To make an analogy, a printer or audio speakers would be considered "severable" portions of a computersystem; the processing unit and monitor would not, because to remove them would impair the system's entire function.) Because the act still contained twoincentives powerful enough to encourage compliance, and since removal of thetake-title clause would not place a burden on other states' citizens as no regional compacts were required to accept New York's waste after the final transition period, the act would remain effective with or without the take-titleprovision.
Dissent: Upsetting a "Delicate Compromise"
Justices Blackmun, Stevens, and White dissented from the Court's ruling on the "take-title" incentive, and two filed dissenting opinions. White's, in which Blackmun and Stevens joined, was by far the longer. He began it by tracingthe history of the act from his perspective, as a "delicate compromise" between the states and the federal government--a balance which in his view the Court would upset by its ruling. "I am unmoved," Justice White wrote, "by the Court's vehemence in taking away Congress' authority to sanction a recalcitrantunsited State now that New York has reaped the benefits of the sited States'concessions." By no means did the provision place undue penalties on New York; in order to be effective, the act had to offer some sort of punitive measures to discourage noncompliance.
Justice White also offered a reading of Hodel and FERC v. Mississippi (1982), another case that the Court had cited in its ruling, which differed sharply from the Court's view of those cases. Indeed, White questionedthe very basis of the distinction that the Court had made between federal statutes that regulated both states and private parties, as opposed to those which placed a regulation solely on states. While conceding the value of the system of checks and balances between the powers of the federal government and those of the states, White held that in the present case, that concept had been wielded for no good purpose. The act did not pose a genuine threat to statesovereignty, he held, whereas the situation it was made to address--nuclearwaste--was a "crisis of national proportions." The Court's ruling on the act,a judgment which White viewed as defeating the flexibility offered by the "delicate compromise," did nothing to further the solution of that crisis.
Justice Stevens also concurred in part and dissented in part, holding that "The notion that Congress does not have the power to issue a simple command tostate governments to implement legislation enacted by Congress . . . is incorrect and unsound." After all, the Court had power to resolve controversies between the states, and if one state took action against another over an issuearising from a regional compact, the Court had authority to adjudicate it. Ifthe Court had such power to decide issues between states, Justice Stevens asked, why did Congress not have similar authority to order the states to comply with federal law?
Impact
New York v. United States continued the Tenth-Amendment roller-coasterride whose highs and lows had been marked by Usery and Garcia.Despite the fact that the Court had only invalidated one of three provisions, some considered the ruling a victory for state sovereignty. To others, it seemed that the alleged movement in favor of the Tenth Amendment, first heralded after Usery, was a revolution that consistently refused to take place. The severability principle implement in New York, however, did help reinforce a notion of flexibility on the Court's part in ruling on disputesbetween the state and federal governments.
Related Cases
State of New York; County of Allegany, New York; County of Cortland, New York
Respondent
United States et al.
Petitioners' Claim
That the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Act Amendments of 1985, which regulatedstates' management of nuclear waste, violated the Tenth Amendment's reservation of powers for the states, as well as the Guarantee Clause of the Constitution.
Chief Lawyer for Petitioners
Peter H. Schiff, Deputy Solicitor General of New York
Chief Lawyer for Respondent
Wallace, U.S. Deputy Solicitor General
Justices for the Court
Anthony M. Kennedy, Sandra Day O'Connor (writing for the Court), William H. Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, David H. Souter, Clarence Thomas
Justices Dissenting
Harry A. Blackmun, John Paul Stevens, Byron R. White
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
19 June 1992
Decision
That two of the act's three incentives to encourage compliance with federal waste-management laws were constitutional under the Commerce Clause; but thata third provision punishing non-compliance was unconstitutional, because it violated the Tenth Amendment.
Significance
This case addressed the constitutional principles of sovereignty and severability. The Tenth Amendment reserves for the states all powers not delegated tothe federal government, but in the century preceding the New York decision, the Court had tended to favor the federal government in Tenth-Amendment cases. The New York ruling placed limitations on both federal and state power. Less obvious was the relevance of the case to severability or separability, which is the idea that the Court can invalidate certain portions ofa statute but leave others intact.
Radioactive Waste
"We live in a world full of low level radioactive waste," Justice O'Connor wrote in the Supreme Court's New York v. United States ruling. As she observed, such waste comes from "luminous watch dials, smoke alarms, measurement devices, medical fluids, research materials, and the protective gear and construction materials used by workers at nuclear power plants." Industry produces such waste, as do hospitals, research institutions, and governments. Thatwaste is most often buried in the ground at specific dumping sites. Few people choose to have such a site near them, since the waste is harmful to the environment and to human health.
In 1962, Congress established the first dumping site for low-level radioactive waste in Beatty, Nevada. During the next decade, it set up five more sites,in Maxey Flats, Kentucky; West Valley, New York; Hanford, Washington; Sheffield, Illinois; and Barnwell, South Carolina. Between 1975 and 1978, three ofthe sites--in Illinois, Kentucky, and New York permanently closed. This leftonly the Nevada, Washington, and South Carolina dumps, to which the rest of the country shipped its waste. The two western sites shut down temporarily in1979, and the governors of Nevada and Washington announced plans for permanent shutdowns. Thus, South Carolina was to be left to bear the burden for the entire nation. In response to the situation, that state's governor ordered theBarnwell site to accept half of the waste it had previously received.
Congress was compelled to act, so in 1980, following a set of recommendationssubmitted to it by the National Governors' Association (NGA), it passed theLow-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act. The act held each state responsible for dealing with its own radioactive waste, which could be done "most safely and efficiently . . . on a regional basis." Therefore it authorized states tomake regional compacts for waste disposal, but it did not penalize states whofailed to participate in such compacts. By 1985, only three compacts had been approved--and these had been formed around the existing "sited states" of South Carolina, Nevada, and Washington. Not surprisingly, other states had been reluctant to create sites, and 31 states not covered by regional compacts would have no available place to dump their wastes.
Based on a proposal submitted by the NGA, the 1985 act proposed a compromise:the three sited states would continue to accept the rest of the nation's waste for seven more years, until 1992, by which time the states not covered byregional compacts would be expected to make other arrangements for their waste disposal. "The mechanics of this compromise," Justice O'Connor wrote, "areintricate," and involved a graduated surcharge system whereby the cost of dumping by non-sited states would increase with time: $10 per cubit foot in 1986-87; $20 in 1988-89; and $40 in 1990-92. Under the act, states had three forms of incentive to comply with the statute's requirement that they develop their own arrangements for waste disposal. The first of these was monetary: theU.S. secretary of energy would collect one-quarter of the surcharges collected by the sited states in an escrow account, from which the states who complied would receive payments. The second incentive involved access--specifically,the denial of access to waste-disposal sites for non-sited states (i.e., states without any compact agreement), and graduated surcharges for each periodin which they failed to make the necessary steps for compliance. Then there was the third incentive, the "take-title provision," which the Court would later deem "the most severe." If a state failed to provide for disposal, eitherwithin its borders or through a regional compact, by 1 January 1996, it wouldbe required to "take title to the waste." The act further provided that thestate would "be obligated to take possession of the waste, and shall be liable for all damages directly or indirectly incurred . . . as a consequence of the failure of the State to take possession of the waste . . . " This could potentially cost states large sums of money, not only for the waste disposal itself, but from claims against states by entities wishing to dispose of such waste.
In the years from 1985 to 1992, Congress approved nine regional compacts, covering 42 of the states. In a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court, the federal government explained that New York was a state that generated "a relatively large share of the Nation's low level radioactive waste," but had not joined a regional compact. Instead, it had identified five potential dumping sites, three in Allegany County and two in Cortland County. Residents of those countiesopposed the state's plan, so New York and the two counties filed suit againstthe United States in 1990. The states of Washington, Nevada, and South Carolina also included themselves as defendants. The district court dismissed thecomplaint, and the petitioners appealed. They had originally raised a numberof constitutional challenges to the act, but by the time the case reached theSupreme Court, their opposition rested on the Tenth Amendment and the Guarantee Clause, which holds in part that "The United States shall guarantee to every State of this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against invasion . . . "
Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal of the lower court's ruling were filed by officials representing the states of Arizona, Arkansas, California, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Texas, West Virginia, and Wisconsin; for the territory of Guam; and for the Council of State Government. Briefs urging affirmance were filed by the American College of Nuclear Physicians et al., the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL/CIO), and the Rocky Mountain Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact.Briefs were also filed by the states of Connecticut and Michigan, and US Ecology, Inc.
"Take-Title" Provision
The Court voted unanimously to uphold the first two forms of incentive, and by a vote of 6-3 it ruled that the "take- title" incentive was unconstitutional. Justice O'Connor, writing for the Court, noted that it had used as its standards the affirmative grants to Congress contained in the Commerce and Spending Clauses of Article I, as well as the principle of state sovereignty embodied in the Tenth Amendment.
The constitutionality of congressional authority over interstate disposal oflow-level radioactive waste had been established in Philadelphia v. New Jersey (1978). But a review of other Court decisions such as Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Assn., Inc. (1981)--not to mention an examination of the concerns raised by the Framers at the ConstitutionalConvention--offered a counterbalancing claim. Specifically, as Justice O'Connor wrote, Congress lacked the power to "commandeer the States' legislative processes by directly compelling them to enact and enforce a federal regulatoryprogram"; rather, it was incumbent on Congress to "exercise legislative authority directly upon individuals." In spite of that, methods existed whereby Congress could "urge" a state, without coercion, to comply with a federal program. It could use its spending power to influence a state's actions by attaching conditions on the dispensing of federal funds, a principle upheld in South Dakota v. Dole (1987). Also, in a situation where Congress had regulatory authority over private activity under the Commerce Clause, it could offer to the states the choice of either regulating their activities according to federal standards, or of having their laws pre-empted by the federal government.
The petitioners had put forth an argument regarding the portion of the act which required states to deal with their own radioactive waste problems, an idea which Justice O'Connor rejected. That provision, the petitioners claimed, was a direct order from Congress to the states, and could be viewed as such byseparating it from the rest of the act. Justice O'Connor held, however, thatthe clause in question was not a "separable mandate." Viewed on its own, theclause would clearly constitute a violation of the balance between federal and state powers, and would thus raise another issue; but Justice O'Connor held that it could not be viewed on its own. Rather, the act should be construed"as a whole to comprise three sets of incentives to the States."
The Court next dealt with the first of these incentives. In establishing themonetary incentive, the Court ruled, Congress acted "well within" its authority under the Commerce and Spending Clauses, and thus the Tenth Amendment hadnot been violated in that particular instance. By authorizing sited states toplace surcharges on radioactive waste, Congress was simply enabling interstate commerce, and the collection of a percentage of that charge by the Secretary of Energy was "no more than a federal tax on interstate commerce, which petitioners do not claim to be an invalid exercise of either Congress' commerceor taxing power." Furthermore, the monetary incentive met the four requirements established in Dole. As for the claim by the petitioners that theescrow account arrangement was "nonfederal" because it collected funds separately from various states, rather than doing so in a blanket fashion, the Court responded that nothing in the Spending Clause prevented this. In any case,by choosing to comply or not, states were free to control whether or not theypaid into the account or received a refund for compliance.
The access incentives were constitutional as well, as they were "a conditional exercise of Congress' commerce power along the lines of that approved in Hodel," and thus did not violate the Tenth Amendment either. Once again,states had a choice: they could either comply with regulations, or they could be denied access to disposal sites. In no way did Congress force them to regulate their waste disposal, make any expenditures, or participate in any federal program.
The third incentive, the one labeled "take-title," was more problematic. The"choice" it offered--of either taking title to the waste and the resulting liabilities, or of complying with the federal program, was coercive and hence forbidden under the Tenth Amendment. By forcing waste-generators (e.g. industry) to transfer their waste to the state, and by requiring states to become liable for the waste, Congress was attempting to "commandeer" the states into compliance with a federal program. Likewise the requirement that states had toregulate waste in accordance with federal direction was unconstitutional aswell. The "choice" offered in the take-title provision, Justice O'Connor wrote, "is no choice at all." Hence, the Court ruled this provision invalid.
Justice O'Connor dealt with several arguments raised by the respondents. Thefederal government had claimed that there were limited situations in which itwas permissible for Congress to coerce states, but the Court rejected this and similar propositions. Likewise the Court rejected the sited states' contention that the act could not be ruled an unconstitutional infringement on NewYork's sovereignty because officials of that state had been given the opportunity to challenge the act's passage and had not; in fact, they had supportedit. Consent of state officials, Justice O'Connor suggested, was irrelevant, "since the Constitution protects state sovereignty for the benefit of individuals, not States or their governments, and since the officials' interests maynot coincide with the Constitution's allocation."
The Court held that the act did not violate the Guarantee Clause because nothing in it "c[ould] be reasonably said to deny New York a republican form of government." Up to this point, the ruling had concerned itself with sovereignty, but the Court concluded by establishing the severability of the act, whereby the "take-title" clause could be removed in order to preserve the constitutionality of the rest of the statute. The guideline for severability was thatif a part of a law could be removed from the rest without defeating the purpose of the larger statute, then it was severable. (To make an analogy, a printer or audio speakers would be considered "severable" portions of a computersystem; the processing unit and monitor would not, because to remove them would impair the system's entire function.) Because the act still contained twoincentives powerful enough to encourage compliance, and since removal of thetake-title clause would not place a burden on other states' citizens as no regional compacts were required to accept New York's waste after the final transition period, the act would remain effective with or without the take-titleprovision.
Dissent: Upsetting a "Delicate Compromise"
Justices Blackmun, Stevens, and White dissented from the Court's ruling on the "take-title" incentive, and two filed dissenting opinions. White's, in which Blackmun and Stevens joined, was by far the longer. He began it by tracingthe history of the act from his perspective, as a "delicate compromise" between the states and the federal government--a balance which in his view the Court would upset by its ruling. "I am unmoved," Justice White wrote, "by the Court's vehemence in taking away Congress' authority to sanction a recalcitrantunsited State now that New York has reaped the benefits of the sited States'concessions." By no means did the provision place undue penalties on New York; in order to be effective, the act had to offer some sort of punitive measures to discourage noncompliance.
Justice White also offered a reading of Hodel and FERC v. Mississippi (1982), another case that the Court had cited in its ruling, which differed sharply from the Court's view of those cases. Indeed, White questionedthe very basis of the distinction that the Court had made between federal statutes that regulated both states and private parties, as opposed to those which placed a regulation solely on states. While conceding the value of the system of checks and balances between the powers of the federal government and those of the states, White held that in the present case, that concept had been wielded for no good purpose. The act did not pose a genuine threat to statesovereignty, he held, whereas the situation it was made to address--nuclearwaste--was a "crisis of national proportions." The Court's ruling on the act,a judgment which White viewed as defeating the flexibility offered by the "delicate compromise," did nothing to further the solution of that crisis.
Justice Stevens also concurred in part and dissented in part, holding that "The notion that Congress does not have the power to issue a simple command tostate governments to implement legislation enacted by Congress . . . is incorrect and unsound." After all, the Court had power to resolve controversies between the states, and if one state took action against another over an issuearising from a regional compact, the Court had authority to adjudicate it. Ifthe Court had such power to decide issues between states, Justice Stevens asked, why did Congress not have similar authority to order the states to comply with federal law?
Impact
New York v. United States continued the Tenth-Amendment roller-coasterride whose highs and lows had been marked by Usery and Garcia.Despite the fact that the Court had only invalidated one of three provisions, some considered the ruling a victory for state sovereignty. To others, it seemed that the alleged movement in favor of the Tenth Amendment, first heralded after Usery, was a revolution that consistently refused to take place. The severability principle implement in New York, however, did help reinforce a notion of flexibility on the Court's part in ruling on disputesbetween the state and federal governments.
Related Cases
- National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U.S. 833 (1976).
- Philadelphia v. New Jersey, 437 U.S. 617 (1978).Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Assn., Inc., 452 U.S. 264 (1981).
- FERC v. Mississippi, 456 U.S. 742 (1982).
- Pacific Gas & Electric Co. v. Energy Resources Commission, 461U.S. 190 (1983).
- South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203 (1987).
- Seminole Nation of Florida v. Florida, 517 U.S. 44 (1996).
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