Opinion ID: 2480904
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Interstate Compact Principles

Text: The United States Constitution provides mechanisms to address matters that are clearly beyond the realm of individual state authority but which, due to their nature, may not be within the immediate purview of the federal government or easily resolved through a purely federal response. C. Broun, M. Buenger, M. McCabe & R. Masters, The Evolving Use and the Changing Role of Interstate Compacts: A Practitioner's Guide 1 n. 2 (2006). Of all the mechanisms available, none is more formal, more state-focused, more adaptable to collective state needs, and perhaps less understood than interstate compacts. Compacts are fundamentally negotiated agreements among member states that have the status of both contract and statutory law. Interstate compacts  represent the only mechanism in the Constitution by which the states themselves can alter the dynamics of their relationships without running afoul of the authority of the federal government or reordering the federal structure of government. Thus, compacts are singularly important because through a compact, the states can create a state-based solution to regional or national problems and effectively retain policy control for the future. (Emphasis in original.) C. Broun, M. Buenger, M. McCabe & R. Masters, The Evolving Use and the Changing Role of Interstate Compacts: A Practitioner's Guide 2-3 (2006). Accord F. Zimmerman & M. Wendell, The Law and Use of Interstate Compacts 46 (1976) (stating that [t]he interstate compact is the most effective medium for establishment by two or more states of joint entities to provide and administer joint public works and facilities); J. Winters, Interstate Metropolitan Areas 12 (1967) (observing that the increasing awareness of the magnitude of [interstate] metropolitan area problems has been accompanied by the increased use of the compact to solve such problems). The compact clause of the United States Constitution provides: No State shall, without the Consent of Congress  enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State . U.S. Const., art. I, § 10, cl. 3. Interstate compact entities occupy a significantly different position in our federal system than do the states themselves. The states are separate sovereigns and constituent elements of the Union. In contrast, interstate compact entities typically are creations of at least three distinct sovereigns: two or more states and the federal government. Hess v. Port Authority Trans-Hudson Corp., 513 U.S. 30, 40, 115 S.Ct. 394, 400, 130 L.Ed.2d 245, 255 (1994). Normally, the ultimate control of every state-created entity resides with the State, for the State may destroy or reshape any unit it creates. Hess, 513 U.S. at 47, 115 S.Ct. at 404, 130 L.Ed.2d at 260. However: As part of the federal plan prescribed by the Constitution, the States agreed to the power sharing, coordination, and unified action that typify Compact Clause creations. Hess, 513 U.S. at 41-42, 115 S.Ct. at 401, 130 L.Ed.2d at 256. Thus, no one State alone can control the course of a Compact Clause entity. Hess, 513 U.S. at 47, 115 S.Ct. at 404, 130 L.Ed.2d at 260. Once given, congressional consent transforms an interstate compact within this clause into a federal law. One consequence of this transformation is that, unless the compact to which Congress has consented is somehow unconstitutional, no court may order relief inconsistent with its express terms. Texas v. New Mexico, 462 U.S. 554, 564, 103 S.Ct. 2558, 2565, 77 L.Ed.2d 1, 12 (1983).