Court Opinion

ID: 9741312
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:53:09.839623+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:23.343041
License: Public Domain

Krivosha, C.J.,
concurring in part, and in part dissenting.
While I generally concur with the majority’s conclusion that establishing legislative criteria to control the transfer of water from the State of Nebraska to an adjoining state is not a violation of the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution, I must respectfully dissent from that portion of the majority’s opinion which holds that the statutory prohibition against the issuance of the permit, if the adjoining state does not grant reciprocity, is a constitutionally valid act of the Legislature. I believe that that portion of Neb. Rev. Stat. § 46-613.01 (Reissue 1978) which prohibits the Director of Water Resources from issuing a permit solely on the basis that the adjoining state does not grant reciprocity is an unreasonable classification and violates both the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Nebraska.
Were the statute in question to provide that no person, firm, city, village, municipal corporation, or any other *713entity, including a citizen of the State of Nebraska, could use water from this state on land owned by such entity in both this state and an adjoining state unless and until the Director of Water Resources found that the water request was reasonable, was not contrary to the conservation and use of ground water, and was not otherwise detrimental to the public welfare, I would have no difficulty with the statute. But the statute as it currently exists provides that even though the director might find that the request is reasonable and that to deny it would be unreasonable, that the request is not contrary to the conservation and use of ground water in this state and, to the contrary, is in furtherance of the conservation and use of ground water in this state, and that it is not otherwise detrimental to the public welfare, but in fact is beneficial to the public welfare, he, nevertheless, cannot issue such permit, solely on the basis that the adjoining state does not permit entities, including its own citizens, to transport water into this state.
The issue here is not whether reciprocal legislation is constitutional, but whether a citizen of the State of Nebraska can be prohibited from using water on land owned by that citizen in both this state and in an adjoining state solely on the basis that the adjoining state would not reciprocate. If one were to extend this statute to its logical conclusion, one could find that even though there was an abundance of water in an area in Nebraska, so much so that flooding was imminent, the water could not be transferred to adjoining land because the adjoining state refused to grant reciprocity. It occurs to me that what this statute attempts to do is to absolutely prohibit the transfer of water, without regard to its need or availability, based solely upon the acts of another state over which citizens of this state have no control.
To permit citizens of one part of the state to care for their land situated both in this state and an adjoining state because the adjoining state permits *714reciprocity, though it may not have water which can be transferred, while denying that privilege to other citizens of this state solely on the basis of the action of an adjoining state and without regard to either the reasonableness of the prohibition at a particular moment or its need, strikes me as being a violation of Neb. Const, art. Ill, § 18, and art. I, § 3, and the fifth and fourteenth amendments to the U.S. Constitution. I would have struck down that portion of § 46-613.01 which denies authority to the director if the adjoining state does not otherwise grant reciprocity.