Opinion ID: 528529
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The National Speed Limit and the Tenth Amendment

Text: 27 Even if the national speed limit falls within the broad ambit of the Commerce Clause, there may remain limitations on the exercise of federal power within this zone of authority. See generally L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law 378-88 (2d ed. 1988). Appellant argues that the Tenth Amendment 17 carves out a sphere of state influence upon which even the Commerce power may not intrude. We disagree. 28 The Supreme Court's decision in Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 469 U.S. 528, 105 S.Ct. 1005, 83 L.Ed.2d 1016 (1985) answers appellant's concerns. In Garcia, the Court rejected the theory articulated in National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U.S. 833, 852, 96 S.Ct. 2465, 2474, 49 L.Ed.2d 245 (1976) that the federal government was powerless to enforce legislation against the States in areas of traditional government functions. It replaced the state functions test of Usery with a process-based analysis of Tenth Amendment limitations. [T]he principal and basic limit on the federal commerce power is that inherent in all congressional action--the built-in restraints that our system provides through state participation in federal government action. Garcia, 469 U.S. at 556, 105 S.Ct. at 1020. 18 Since the representatives of the States and local interests comprise the constituent parts of the federal government, [t]he political process ensures that laws that unduly burden the States will not be promulgated. Id. Consequently, absent any extraordinary defect in the national political process, Nevada's forum for raising a claim of infringed sovereignty lies with the legislature, not the judiciary. See South Carolina v. Baker, 108 S.Ct. at 1360 (plurality opinion). Although the contours of the extraordinary defect test remains fuzzy, suffice it to say that Nevada has not alleged that it was excluded from the national political process or that it was singled out in a way that left it politically isolated and powerless. Id. at 1361 (citing United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U.S. 144, 152 n. 4, 58 S.Ct. 778, 783 n. 4, 82 L.Ed. 1234 (1938)). 29 Moreover, even if we were to apply the traditional government test of Usery, we do not believe that the national speed limit would infringe upon any integral state function. While the federal courts have, on occasion, given lip service to the notion of state control over roads, it has most frequently done so in the context of striking down state legislation as a burden on interstate commerce. See, e.g., Navajo Freight Lines, 359 U.S. at 523, 79 S.Ct. at 964 (striking down Illinois mud-flap regulation despite States broad and pervasive authority over highways). Nor is the federal government a newcomer to this field. Congress first promulgated the Federal Aid Highway Act in the first years of this century, and the task of building the Interstate Highway System has been an endeavor spanning four decades. Thus, the control of roads and highways has not traditionally fallen under plenary state control but under the cooperative agreement of state, local, and federal officials. Even during the brief ascendancy of the National League of Cities doctrines, courts frequently upheld federal regulation of state highways. See, e.g., Friends of the Earth v. Carey, 552 F.2d 25, 38 (2d Cir.1977) ([t]he regulation of traffic on roads and highways, with its strong regional and interstate character ... has long been considered to be a cooperative effort between City, State and federal authorities, with no single entity being able to provide or impose a comprehensive traffic system, and with federal power, where necessary, taking precedence ) (emphasis added). 19 Cf. United Trans. Union v. Long Island R.R. Co., 455 U.S. 678, 102 S.Ct. 1349, 71 L.Ed.2d 547 (1982) (upholding federal regulation of railroads). 30 Finally, appellant argues that the federal regulations in force here effectively commandeered its regulatory power and required it to enforce unwillingly the national speed limit with state personnel and local resources. This, it argues, violates the Tenth Amendment rule laid out in Federal Energy Regulatory Comm'n v. Mississippi, 456 U.S. 742, 102 S.Ct. 2126, 72 L.Ed.2d 532 (1982). 20 As a preliminary matter, we express substantial doubt as to whether FERC has survived the Supreme Court's decision in Garcia. The extent to which the Tenth Amendment claim left open in FERC survives Garcia or poses constitutional limitations independent of those discussed in Garcia is far from clear. South Carolina v. Baker, 108 S.Ct. at 1361 (plurality opinion). The FERC Tenth Amendment claim rested on the same pillar of interference with state sovereignty as the theory rejected in Garcia, and there is, therefore, no apparent reason to think that the answer to that claim would now be any different than the answer given by the Supreme Court in Garcia. As that opinion teaches, Nevada's complaints regarding cooption of state resources must be resolved in the legislative process; it is that process which protects the fundamental interests of the states. 31 Even if pieces of FERC survive the Garcia decision, we do not believe that reversal would be required here. In FERC, the Supreme Court suggested that there may be some limits on the power of the federal government to use state regulatory machinery for its own ends. 456 U.S. at 759, 102 S.Ct. at 2137. However, the Court went on to hold that the provisions of Public Utilities Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA) did not run afoul of that rule because PURPA only required the state administrative agency to participate in its customary form of activity. Id. at 760, 102 S.Ct. at 2137. See also Testa v. Katt, 330 U.S. 386, 67 S.Ct. 810, 91 L.Ed. 967 (1947). Similarly, in this case, the national speed limit requires the state police to enforce a standard only marginally different from the ordinary state rule. The state regulatory machinery is not diverted from its regular duties but continues to enforce the identical type of rule it has traditionally implemented. That the specific speed limit it now enforces results indirectly from a federal statute instead of exclusively from a state statute has little or nothing to do with the nature of the function performed by the state officers. 21 To hold that FERC controls here would be to allow the States to disregard both the preeminent position held by federal law throughout the Nation, cf. Martin v. Hunter's Lessee, 1 Wheat. 304, 340-41, 4 L.Ed. 97 (1816), and the congressional determination that the federal rights ... can appropriately be enforced through state adjudicatory machinery. FERC, 456 U.S. at 761, 102 S.Ct. at 2138. Even assuming that FERC has not outlived its usefulness, we think it clear that the national speed limit does not unconstitutionally disrupt the state regulatory machinery.