Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-1039_8n5a.pdf
Page Number: 35

Cite as:  594 U. S. ____ (2021) 

3 

BARRETT, J., dissenting 

Founders thought such a surrender inherent in the consti-
tutional compact.”  Blatchford v. Native Village of Noatak, 
501 U. S. 775, 781 (1991).

The  Court  accepts  PennEast’s  argument  that  there  is
such  compelling  evidence  here.  The  reasoning  goes  like
this:  States  “surrendered  any  immunity  from  the  federal
government’s eminent-domain power in the plan of the con-
vention”; when they did so, “they  were consenting to that
power as it was then ‘known’ ”; and “[a]t the Founding, em-
inent domain was universally known as a power that could
be delegated to private parties.”  Brief for Petitioner 23, 33. 
So, the argument concludes, the States “were consenting to
a power that the federal government could exercise either
itself or through delegations to private parties.”  Id., at 34. 
The States “simply do not have any immunity to invoke in
this context.”  Id., at 23. 

These premises warrant clarification.  First, the Consti-
tution  enumerates  no  stand-alone 
“eminent-domain 
power.”2   The  Court  recognizes—as  does  our  precedent—
that the Federal Government may exercise the right of em-
inent domain only “so far as is necessary to the enjoyment
of the powers conferred upon it by the Constitution.”  Kohl 
v. United States, 91 U. S. 367, 372 (1876); see McCulloch v. 
Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 421 (1819).  Any taking of prop-
erty provided for by Congress is thus an exercise of another 
constitutional power—in the case of the Natural Gas Act, 
the  Commerce  Clause—augmented  by  the  Necessary  and
Proper Clause.  So when Congress allows a private party to 
take property in service of a federally authorized project, it 
is choosing a means by which to carry an enumerated power 
into effect. 

Second,  the  assertion  that  the  States  “surrendered  any 

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2 The Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment is a limitation on Gov-
ernment power, not a grant of it.  It provides: “[N]or shall private prop-
erty  be  taken  for  public  use,  without  just  compensation.”    It  thus  pre-
sumes that the power exists by virtue of other constitutional provisions.