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91-543.ZS
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NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is
being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.
The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been
prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.
See United States v. Detroit Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Syllabus
NEW YORK v. UNITED STATES et al.
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the second circuit
No. 91-543. Argued March 30, 1992-Decided June 19, 1992
Faced with a looming shortage of disposal sites for low level radioactive
waste in 31 States, Congress enacted the Low-Level Radioactive
Waste Policy Amendments Act of 1985, which, among other things,
imposes upon States, either alone or in ``regional compacts'' with
other States, the obligation to provide for the disposal of waste
generated within their borders, and contains three provisions setting
forth ``incentives'' to States to comply with that obligation. The first
set of incentives-the monetary incentives-works in three steps: (1)
States with disposal sites are authorized to impose a surcharge on
radioactive waste received from other States; (2) the Secretary of
Energy collects a portion of this surcharge and places it in an escrow
account; and (3) States achieving a series of milestones in developing
sites receive portions of this fund. The second set of incentives-the
access incentives-authorizes sited States and regional compacts
gradually to increase the cost of access to their sites, and then to
deny access altogether, to waste generated in States that do not meet
federal deadlines. The so-called third ``incentive''-the take title
provision-specifies that a State or regional compact that fails to
provide for the disposal of all internally generated waste by a partic-
ular date must, upon the request of the waste's generator or owner,
take title to and possession of the waste and become liable for all
damages suffered by the generator or owner as a result of the State's
failure to promptly take possession. Petitioners, New York State and
two of its counties, filed this suit against the United States, seeking
a declaratory judgment that, inter alia, the three incentives provi-
sions are inconsistent with the Tenth Amendment-which declares
that ``powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution,
nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States''-and
with the Guarantee Clause of Article IV, 4-which directs the
United States to ``guarantee to every State . . . a Republican Form
of Government.'' The District Court dismissed the complaint, and the
Court of Appeals affirmed.
Held:
1.The Act's monetary incentives and access incentives provisions
are consistent with the Constitution's allocation of power between the
Federal and State Governments, but the take title provision is not.
Pp.7-36.
(a)In ascertaining whether any of the challenged provisions
oversteps the boundary between federal and state power, the Court
must determine whether it is authorized by the affirmative grants to
Congress contained in Article I's Commerce and Spending Clauses or
whether it invades the province of state sovereignty reserved by the
Tenth Amendment. Pp.7-12.
(b)Although regulation of the interstate market in the disposal
of low level radioactive waste is well within Congress' Commerce
Clause authority, cf. Philadelphia v. New Jersey, 437 U.S. 617,
621-623, and Congress could, if it wished, pre-empt entirely state
regulation in this area, a review of this Court's decisions, see, e. g.,
Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Assn., Inc.,
452 U.S. 264, 288, and the history of the Constitutional Convention,
demonstrates that Congress may not commandeer the States' legisla-
tive processes by directly compelling them to enact and enforce a
federal regulatory program, but must exercise legislative authority
directly upon individuals. Pp.12-19.
(c)Nevertheless, there are a variety of methods, short of outright
coercion, by which Congress may urge a State to adopt a legislative
program consistent with federal interests. As relevant here, Congress
may, under its spending power, attach conditions on the receipt of
federal funds, so long as such conditions meet four requirements.
See, e. g., South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203, 206-208, and n.3.
Moreover, where Congress has the authority to regulate private
activity under the Commerce Clause, it may, as part of a program of
``cooperative federalism,'' offer States the choice of regulating that
activity according to federal standards or having state law pre-
empted by federal regulation. See, e. g., Hodel, supra, at 288, 289.
Pp.19-21.
(d)This Court declines petitioners' invitation to construe the
Act's provision obligating the States to dispose of their radioactive
wastes as a separate mandate to regulate according to Congress'
instructions. That would upset the usual constitutional balance of
federal and state powers, whereas the constitutional problem is
avoided by construing the Act as a whole to comprise three sets of
incentives to the States. Pp.21-23.
(e)The Act's monetary incentives are well within Congress'
Commerce and Spending Clause authority and thus are not inconsis-
tent with the Tenth Amendment. The authorization to sited States
to impose surcharges is an unexceptionable exercise of Congress'
power to enable the States to burden interstate commerce. The
Secretary's collection of a percentage of the surcharge is no more
than a federal tax on interstate commerce, which petitioners do not
claim to be an invalid exercise of either Congress' commerce or taxing
power. Finally, in conditioning the States' receipt of federal funds
upon their achieving specified milestones, Congress has not exceeded
its Spending Clause authority in any of the four respects identified
by this Court in Dole, supra, at 207-208. Petitioners' objection to the
form of the expenditures as nonfederal is unavailing, since the
Spending Clause has never been construed to deprive Congress of the
power to collect money in a segregated trust fund and spend it for a
particular purpose, and since the States' ability largely to control
whether they will pay into the escrow account or receive a share was
expressly provided by Congress as a method of encouraging them to
regulate according to the federal plan. Pp.23-26.
(f)The Act's access incentives constitute a conditional exercise
of Congress' commerce power along the lines of that approved in
Hodel, supra, at 288, and thus do not intrude on the States' Tenth
Amendment sovereignty. These incentives present nonsited States
with the choice either of regulating waste disposal according to
federal standards or having their waste-producing residents denied
access to disposal sites. They are not compelled to regulate, expend
any funds, or participate in any federal program, and they may
continue to regulate waste in their own way if they do not accede to
federal direction. Pp.26-27.
(g)Because the Act's take title provision offers the States a
``choice'' between the two unconstitutionally coercive alterna-
tives-either accepting ownership of waste or regulating according to
Congress' instructions-the provision lies outside Congress' enumerat-
ed powers and is inconsistent with the Tenth Amendment. On the
one hand, either forcing the transfer of waste from generators to the
States or requiring the States to become liable for the generators'
damages would ``commandeer'' States into the service of federal
regulatory purposes. On the other hand, requiring the States to
regulate pursuant to Congress' direction would present a simple
unconstitutional command to implement legislation enacted by
Congress. Thus, the States' ``choice'' is no choice at all. Pp.27-29.
(h)The United States' alternative arguments purporting to find
limited circumstances in which congressional compulsion of state
regulation is constitutionally permissible-that such compulsion is
justified where the federal interest is sufficiently important; that the
Constitution does, in some circumstances, permit federal directives to
state governments; and that the Constitution endows Congress with
the power to arbitrate disputes between States in interstate com-
merce-are rejected. Pp.30-33.
(i)Also rejected is the sited state respondents' argument that the
Act cannot be ruled an unconstitutional infringement of New York
sovereignty because officials of that State lent their support, and
consented, to the Act's passage. A departure from the Constitution's
plan for the intergovernmental allocation of authority cannot be
ratified by the ``consent'' of state officials, since the Constitution
protects state sovereignty for the benefit of individuals, not States or
their governments, and since the officials' interests may not coincide
with the Constitution's allocation. Nor does New York's prior support
estop it from asserting the Act's unconstitutionality. Pp.33-36.
(j)Even assuming that the Guarantee Clause provides a basis
upon which a State or its subdivisions may sue to enjoin the enforce-
ment of a federal statute, petitioners have not made out a claim that
the Act's money incentives and access incentives provisions are
inconsistent with that Clause. Neither the threat of loss of federal
funds nor the possibility that the State's waste producers may find
themselves excluded from other States' disposal sites can reasonably
be said to deny New York a republican form of government.
Pp.36-38.
2.The take title provision is severable from the rest of the Act,
since severance will not prevent the operation of the rest of the Act
or defeat its purpose of encouraging the States to attain local or
regional self-sufficiency in low level radioactive waste disposal; since
the Act still includes two incentives to encourage States along this
road; since a State whose waste generators are unable to gain access
to out-of-state disposal sites may encounter considerable internal
pressure to provide for disposal, even without the prospect of taking
title; and since any burden caused by New York's failure to secure a
site will not be borne by other States' residents because the sited
regional compacts need not accept New York's waste after the final
transition period. Pp.38-40.
942 F.2d 114, affirmed in part and reversed in part.
O'Connor, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehn-
quist, C. J., and Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, and Thomas, JJ., joined,
and in Parts III-A and III-B of which White, Blackmun, and
Stevens, JJ., joined. White, J., filed an opinion concurring in part
and dissenting in part, in which Blackmun and Stevens, JJ., joined.
Stevens, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.