Court Opinion

ID: 9428780
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:24:46.556507+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:15.271098
License: Public Domain

Justice Powell,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
The Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978, Pub. L. 95-617, 92 Stat. 3117 et seq. (PURPA), imposes unprecedented burdens on the States. As Justice O’Connor ably demonstrates, it intrusively requires them to make a place on their administrative agenda for consideration and potential adoption of federally proposed “standards.” The statute does not simply ask States to consider quasi-legislative matters that Congress believes they would do well to adopt. It also prescribes administrative and judicial procedures that States must follow in deciding whether to adopt the proposed standards. At least to this extent, I think the PURPA violates the Tenth Amendment.
*772I
Most, if not all, of the States have administrative bodies— usually commissions — that regulate electric and gas public utility companies. As these utilities normally are given monopoly jurisdiction, they are extensively regulated both substantively and procedurally by state law. Until now, with limited exceptions, the Federal Government has not attempted to pre-empt this important state function, and certainly has not undertaken to prescribe the procedures by which state regulatory bodies make their decisions. The PURPA, for the first time, breaks with this longstanding deference to principles of federalism.
Now, regardless of established procedures before state administrative regulatory agencies and of state law with respect to judicial review, the PURPA forces federal procedures on state regulatory institutions. The PURPA prescribes rules directing that “the Secretary [of Energy], any affected electric utility, or any electric consumer of an affected electric utility may intervene and participate as a matter of right” in regulatory proceedings required by the PURPA respecting electrical rates.1 It directs that “[a]ny person (including the Secretary) may bring an action to enforce” the obligations with respect to electrical rate consideration that the PURPA lays upon state regulatory commissions.2 The statute provides that “[a]ny person (including *773the Secretary) may obtain [judicial] review of any determination” made by a state regulatory commission regarding the PURPA’s electrical rate policies.3 The foregoing requirements by the PURPA intrude upon — in effect pre-empt— core areas of a State’s administrative and judicial procedure.
HH HH
In sustaining these provisions of the Act, the Court reasons that Congress can condition the utility regulatory activities of States on any terms it pleases since, under the Commerce Clause, Congress has the power to pre-empt completely all such activities. Ante, at 765-766. Under this “threat of pre-emption” reasoning, Congress — one supposes —could reduce the States to federal provinces. But as National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U. S. 833, 841 (1976), stated, and indeed as the structure of the Court’s opinion today makes plain, ante, at 753 and 758, the Commerce Clause and the Tenth Amendment embody distinct limitations on federal power. That Congress has satisfied the one demonstrates nothing as to whether Congress has satisfied the other.4
*774“The general rule, bottomed deeply in belief in the importance of state control of state judicial procedure, is that federal law takes the state courts as it finds them.” Hart, The Relations Between State and Federal Law, 54 Colum. L. Rev. 489, 508 (1954). I believe the same principle must apply to other organs of state government. It may be true that the procedural provisions of the PURPA that prompt this dissent may not effect dramatic changes in the laws and procedures of some States. But I know of no other attempt by the Federal Government to supplant state-prescribed procedures that in part define the nature of their administrative agencies. If Congress may do this, presumably it has the power to pre-empt state-court rules of civil procedure and judicial review in classes of cases found to affect commerce. This would be the type of gradual encroachment hypothesized by Professor Tribe: “Of course, no one expects Congress to obliterate the states, at least in one fell swoop. If *775there is any danger, it lies in the tyranny of small decisions— in the prospect that Congress will nibble away at state sovereignty, bit by bit, until someday essentially nothing is left but a gutted shell.”5
I limit this dissent to the provisions of the PURPA identified above. Despite the appeal — and indeed wisdom — of Justice O’Connor’s evocation of the principles of federalism, I believe precedents of this Court support the constitutionality of the substantive provisions of this Act on this facial attack. See Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Assn., Inc., 452 U. S. 264 (1981); Testa v. Katt, 330 U. S. 386 (1947). Accordingly, to the extent the procedural provisions may be separable, I would affirm in part and reverse in part.

 16 U. S. C. § 2631(a) (1976 ed., Supp. IV). “[A]ny electric utility or electric consumer” may enforce its intervention and participation rights in federal court. § 2633(b)(2). See also § 2633(b)(1).
The PURPA grants similar intervention and participation rights to the Secretary with respect to state natural gas utility rate proceedings. See 15 U. S. C. §3205 (1976 ed., Supp. IV). These rights also are specified to be enforceable in federal court. See § 3207(a)(2).

 16 U. S. C. §2633(c)(1) (1976 ed., Supp. IV). A similar enforcement right is granted in the case of natural gas rate proceedings. 15 U. S. C. § 3207(b)(1) (1976 ed., Supp. IV).
Under the PURPA’s Title II, § 210, States must implement federal rules relating to the interconnection of electrical utilities with qualifying cogeneration and small power production facilities. 16 U. S. C. § 824a-3 *773(1976 ed., Supp. IV). The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and (under certain conditions) “[a]ny electrical utility, qualifying cogenerator, or qualifying small power producer” may bring judicial actions against state regulatory commissions to require the implementation of the federal rules prescribed by the PURPA. §§ 824a-3(h)(2)(A) and (B).

 16 U. S. C. § 2633(c)(1) (1976 ed., Supp. IV). The PURPA also makes available a right of judicial review in the same manner with respect to the interconnection of electrical utilities with cogeneration and small power production facilities. § 824a-3(g)(1). No similar right is available in the case of natural gas rate proceedings. See 15 U. S. C. § 3207(b)(2) (1976 ed., Supp. IV).
As a separate matter, the PURPA specifies the procedural requirements for the state regulatory agencies’ consideration and determination of the PURPA’s federally proposed standards. See § 3203(c); 16 U. S. C. §2621(b)(1) (1976 ed., Supp. IV).

 The Court cites Testa v. Katt, 330 U. S. 386 (1947), in support of the proposition that under some conditions the Federal Government may call *774upon state governmental institutions to decide matters of federal policy. But Testa recognized that, when doing so, Congress must respect the state institution’s own decisionmaking structure and method. That opinion limited its holding to circumstances under which the state court has “jurisdiction adequate and appropriate under established local law to adjudicate this [federal] action.” Id., at 394 (emphasis added). The Testa Court then emphasized its meaning by citing Herb v. Pitcairn, 324 U. S. 117 (1945), where the Court stated that “[i]t would not be open to us” to insist on adjudication in a state court of a federal claim arising beyond the jurisdiction of the local court. Id., at 121. See Note, Utilization of State Courts to Enforce Federal Penal and Criminal Statutes: Development in Judicial Federalism, 60 Harv. L. Rev. 966, 971 (1947) (nothing in Testa upsets “the traditional doctrine that Congress may not interfere with a state’s sovereign right to determine and control the jurisdictional requirements of its own courts”).
The Court also cites Washington v. Washington State Commercial Passenger Fishing Vessel Assn., 443 U. S. 658 (1979), to support its holding. Ante, at 762. The case stands for the unremarkable proposition that a district court, after adjudicating a contest under federal law between a State and Indian tribes over fishing rights, may order the losing State to abide by the court’s decision. Nothing in our Fishing Vessel Assn. opinion authorized the federal court to amend the structure of a state political institution.

 L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law 302 (1978).