Court Opinion

ID: 9457294
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:18:05.320768+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:17.444596
License: Public Domain

VAN OOSTERHOUT, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I regret that I am unable to agree with the conclusion reached in the majority opinion. I would reverse.
Chief Judge Matthes in the majority opinion has fairly stated the facts and the issues. I agree that Congress has power to preempt the field here involved and that it has in fact preempted absolute control of licensing nuclear power for civilian use. The licensing power carries with it the right to impose conditions on the private use of nuclear energy. The minimum standards imposed by the government must be met and cannot be lowered by a state or an agency thereof. The standards imposed by the State of Minnesota upon Northern States Power Company in the interest of preventing pollution of its air, water and land are more restrictive than those imposed by the AEC.
*1155Highly important first impression issues of environment control and state and federal relations are presented by this appeal.
The standards to be followed in determining whether federal preemption exists are thus stated in Florida Lime & Avocado Growers, Inc. v. Paul, 373 U.S. 132, 142, 83 S.Ct. 1210, 1217, 10 L.Ed.2d 248:
“The test of whether both federal and state regulations may operate, or the state regulation must give way, is whether both regulations can be enforced without impairing the federal superintendence of the field, not whether they are aimed at similar or different objectives.
“The principle to be derived from our decisions is that federal regulation of a field of commerce should not be deemed preemptive of state regulatory power in the absence of persuasive reasons — either that the nature of the regulated subject matter permits no other conclusion, or that the Congress has unmistakably so ordained. See, e. g., Huron Portland Cement Co. v. Detroit, supra.”
The tests there stated.are the appropriate tests to be applied in our present situation. We all agree that it is possible for Northern to comply with both the state and federal regulations, and hence preemption is not established by the first test. Our point of difference is on the issue of whether Congress has “unmistakably” expressed an intent to preempt the field. The Supreme Court has uniformly recognized the legitimate interest of the state in its laws designed to protect the health and safety of its citizens and has refused to find federal preemption over state health and safety laws, absent a clear and unmistakable showing of an intent on the part of Congress to preempt. Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers v. Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad Co., 382 U.S. 423, 86 S.Ct. 594, 15 L.Ed.2d 501 (reversing 239 F.Supp. 1); Huron Portland Cement Co. v. City of Detroit, 362 U.S. 440, 80 S.Ct. 813, 4 L.Ed.2d 852; Terminal Railroad Ass’n of St. Louis v. Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, 318 U.S. 1, 63 S.Ct. 420, 87 L.Ed. 571; Reid v. Colorado, 187 U.S. 137, 23 S.Ct. 92, 47 L.Ed. 108.
In cases not involving public health and safety, preemption is much more readily inferred. Local 24 International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. Oliver, 358 U.S. 283, 297, 79 S.Ct. 297, 3 L.Ed.2d 312; California v. Taylor, 353 U.S. 553, 77 S.Ct. 1037, 1 L.Ed.2d 1034.
The state laws here relevant clearly fall in the category of laws designed to protect the health and safety of Minnesota citizens.
We are in agreement that the Atomic Energy Act as amended contains no express provision that the federal government shall have sole and exclusive authority to regulate radiation emissions from nuclear power plants. The failure of the statute to expressly preempt the field is not an oversight. Highly pertinent legislative history is set forth in Note “Jurisdiction — Atomic Energy”, 68 Mich.L.Rev. 1294, 1303-1304,1 as follows:
“During the hearings on the amendment held by the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, the lack of an explicit delineation of federal and state responsibilities regarding the operation of nuclear reactors was discussed. In fact, the same Minnesota regulations that are the subject of the current controversy between that state and the AEC led Mr. Toll, counsel to the committee, to suggest the need for further clarification:
Mr. Toll * * * [0]n the question of reactors does this bill go far enough? Should there be a statement that these activities are expressly preemptive to the federal government ?
*1156Mr. Lowenstein. [Office of the General Counsel, AEC] Under this bill which gives explicit reference to the interest of the Federal and State Governments, ' we think it would be fairly apparent, as many of us now believe under the existing Atomic Energy Act, that there has been an area of preemption. We considered the desirability of writing the kind of provision you suggested, Mr. Toll, and we decided against it primarily for the reason that it is practically impossible to try to define, taking into account all of the various gray areas and special circumstances that might arise, where these areas of preemption begin and end.
Mr. Toll. Does this bill do anything to clarify the situation as to the Minnesota regulations * * *? Minnesota has no indication from the Federal Government as to whether or not the State of Minnesota has legal authority to license reactors.
Mr. Lowenstein. In this bill, we are not trying to deal with any specific situation.
Mr. Toll. Minnesota is just an example of the first State that has attempted to license reactors. Should this bill attempt to spell out whether or not they are encouraged or whether they have legal authority to do this?
Mr. Lowenstein. I think this is a suggestion that is certainly worth giving consideration to. The problem, I think, that you run into is that when you begin to specify one thing such as licensing, then you create questions and perhaps leave inferences as to what the State’s authority might be in other details.
“Mr. Toll then suggested that the Act should be reworded in order to make explicit Congress’ intent to preempt state control of nuclear reactors; but Mr. Lowenstein, expressing the AEC position, stated a preference for leaving the question to the court:
Mr. Lowenstein. We thought that this act, without saying in so many words did make clear that there was preemption here, but we have tried to avoid defining the precise extent of that preemption, feeling that it is better to leave these kind of detailed questions perhaps up to the courts later to be resolved.
“Representative Durham voiced some objection to the AEC position:
Representative Durham. I don’t agree in writing an act like that. I think it should be clearly defined what is our field and what is their field.
Mr. Lowenstein. I think this does do that, Mr. Durham. Representative Durham. I think so, too. If they want to set up a licensing system, they can do it. The courts will decide it, then, not us. I think the law should be as clear as possible to avoid litigation. I am not a lawyer, but I wonder if that is not a pretty clear statement of what we intended to do, and what we are writing into the Act.”
It would appear that the General Counsel for AEC on behalf of AEC expressed the view that the Commission was uncertain how far it wanted to go on preemption and that the Commission did not favor defining the precise area or extent of preemption.
Congress knew how to establish federal preemption by expressly providing therefore in clear language. No such language was incorporated in the Act. A similar situation existed in Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers v. Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad Co., supra, where the Supreme Court reversed a three-judge determination that Congress had preempted the field covered by the full-crew laws.
The Atomic Energy Act as amended as a whole reflects no clear intent to preempt the field involved in this appeal. Section 274(b) (42 U.S.C.A. § *11572021) expresses a willingness to transfer some types of regulation to the states. Section 274(c), which appears to be the most pertinent to radiation control of nuclear power, reads:
“(c) No agreement entered into pursuant to subsection (b) of this section shall provide for discontinuance of any authority and the Commission shall retain authority and responsibility with respect to regulation of—
(1) the construction and operation of any production or utilization facility; * *
Section 274(k) reads:
“Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect the authority of any State or local agency to regulate activities for purposes other than protection against radiation hazards.”
The foregoing statutes establish the responsibility on the AEC to regulate permissible radiation of nuclear plants. They do not state that such power is exclusive. It would appear to be entirely reasonable for Congress to place on the AEC as licensor the responsibility for making certain protection would be afforded the public from radiation hazards. There is nothing in the statutes which expresses a clear Congressional intent to prohibit the states from taking additional reasonable steps deemed necessary to control air, water and land pollution whether the pollution be by radiation or otherwise. As pointed out by the majority opinion, language can be found in the legislative history to support a contrary view. The language of a statute controls over the legislative history, which is often ambiguous. Congress was aware of the problem and could have solved it readily by incorporating appropriate language in the Act. It refused to do so.
Pollution of land, water and air by nuclear power plants may be brought about by other means than radiation. Close factual issues may arise whether pollution is caused by radiation or by other pollutants. Control of pollution not caused by radiation is expressly reserved to the states. Thus the control of various sources of pollution is divided and hence complete unification of pollution caused by nuclear plants is not possible.
The AEC prior to the adoption of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, 42 U.S.C.A. § 4321 (NEPA) consistently held that its obligations were limited to radiation hazards and that it could not consider broader environmental impacts. State of New Hampshire v. Atomic Energy Commission, 1 Cir., 406 F.2d 170; Calvert Cliffs’ Coordinating Committee, Inc. v. United States Atomic Energy Commission, D.C. Cir., 449 F.2d 1109 (July 23, 1971).
Congress since the passage of the Atomic Energy Act and amendments thereto manifested a clear interest in protecting our natural environments and in furtherance thereof has enacted the Environmental Education Act, 20 U.S.C.A. § 1531; Air Quality Act of 1967, 42 U.S.C.A. § 1857; Environmental Quality Improvement Act of 1970, 42 U.S.C.A. §§ 4372-4374; Water and Environmental Quality Improvement Act of 1970, Pub.L. 91-224, 91st Cong., 2d Sess. (1970).
A good discussion of these acts is found in Calvert Cliffs' supra. The environmental control acts recognize a significant state interest in protecting environment. Calvert Cliffs’ points out that AEC rules adopted subsequent to NEPA require that a condition be added to all nuclear construction permits which would obligate the holders of the permits to observe all applicable environmental standards imposed by federal or state law.2
The majority opinion also observes that states might adopt overprotective environmental control regulations which would go to the extent of stultifying the industrial development and use of atomic *1158energy. I agree that such a possibility exists. However, in our present case the trial court decided the case on the basis of absolute preemption as a matter of law and refused to permit testimony on the reasonableness of the state regulations or the balancing of environmental protection against the desired development of the use of atomic energy. The court made no findings upon such issue. The issue of the reasonableness of the state regulations and of whether they were so burdensome as to frustrate the development of atomic energy is not properly before us.
I would reverse the judgment of dismissal.

. See 1959 Hearings 307.

. The court in Calvert Cliffs’ determines that the AEC in respects set out has failed to fully comply with the requirements of NEPA.