Sporhase v. Nebraska Douglas

CourtUnited States Supreme Court
Citation102 S.Ct. 3456,73 L.Ed.2d 1254,458 U.S. 941
Docket NumberNo. 81-613,81-613
PartiesJoy SPORHASE and Delmer Moss, etc., Appellants v. NEBRASKA, ex rel. Paul L. DOUGLAS, Attorney General
Decision Date02 July 1982
Syllabus

A Nebraska statute provides that any person who intends to withdraw ground water from any well located in the State and transport it for use in an adjoining State must obtain a permit from the Nebraska Department of Water Resources. If the Director of Water Resources finds that such withdrawal is reasonable, not contrary to the conservation and use of ground water, and not otherwise detrimental to the public welfare, he will grant the permit if the State in which the water is to be used grants reciprocal rights to withdraw and transport ground water from that State for use in Nebraska. Appellants jointly own contiguous tracts of land in Nebraska and Colorado, on which a well on the Nebraska tract pumps ground water for irrigation of both the Nebraska and Colorado tracts, but they never applied for the permit required by the statute. Appellee brought an action in a Nebraska state court to enjoin appellants from transferring the water across the border without a permit. Rejecting the defense that the statute imposed an undue burden on interstate commerce, the trial court granted the injunction. The Nebraska Supreme Court affirmed.

Held:

1. Ground water is an article of commerce and therefore subject to congressional regulation. Pp. 945-954.

(a) Although appellee's claimed greater ownership interest in ground water than in certain other natural resources may not be irrelevant to Commerce Clause analysis, it does not remove Nebraska ground water from such scrutiny, since appellee's argument is still based on the legal fiction of state ownership. Pp. 945-952.

(b) The States' interests in conserving and preserving scarce water resources in the arid Western States clearly have an interstate dimension. The agricultural markets supplied by irrigated farms provide the archtypical example of commerce among the States for which the Framers of the Constitution intended to authorize federal regulation. Here, the multistate character of the aquifer underlying appellants' tracts of land, as well as parts of Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Kansas, demonstrates that there is a significant federal interest in conservation as well as in fair allocation of diminishing water resources. Pp. 952-954.

2. The reciprocity requirement of the Nebraska statute violates the Commerce Clause as imposing an impermissible burden on interstate commerce. While the first three conditions set forth in the statute for granting a permit—that the withdrawal of the ground water be reasonable, not contrary to the conservation and use of ground water, and not otherwise detrimental to the public welfare do not on their faces impermissibly burden interstate commerce, the reciprocity provision operates as an explicit barrier to commerce between Nebraska and its adjoining States. Nebraska therefore has the initial burden of demonstrating a close fit between the reciprocity requirement and its asserted local purpose. Such requirement, when superimposed on the first three restrictions, fails to clear this initial hurdle, since there is no evidence that it is narrowly tailored to the conservation and preservation rationale. Thus, it does not survive the "strictest scrutiny" reserved for facially discriminatory legislation. Pp. 954-958.

3. Congress has not granted the States permission to engage in ground water regulation that would otherwise be impermissible. Although there are 37 federal statutes and a number of interstate compacts demonstrating Congress' deference to state water law, they do not indicate that Congress wished to remove federal constitutional restraints on such state law. Neither the fact that Congress has chosen not to create a federal water law to govern water rights involved in federal water projects nor the fact that Congress has been willing to let the States settle their differences over water rights through mutual agreement, constitutes persuasive evidence that Congress consented to the unilateral imposition of unreasonable burdens on commerce. Pp. 958-960.

208 Neb. 703, 305 N.W.2d 614, reversed and remanded.

Richard A. Dudden, Ogallala, Neb., for appellants.

George Roderic Anderson, Lincoln, Neb., for appellee.

Justice STEVENS delivered the opinion of the Court.

Appellants challenge the constitutionality of a Nebraska statutory restriction on the withdrawal of ground water from any well within Nebraska intended for use in an adjoining State. The challenge presents three questions under the Commerce Clause: 1 (1) whether ground water is an article of commerce and therefore subject to congressional regulation; (2) whether the Nebraska restriction on the interstate transfer of ground water imposes an impermissible burden on commerce; and (3) whether Congress has granted the States permission to engage in ground water regulation that otherwise would be impermissible.

Appellants jointly own contiguous tracts of land in Chase County, Nebraska, and Phillips County, Colorado. A well physically located on the Nebraska tract pumps ground water for irrigation of both the Nebraska tract and the Colorado tract. Previous owners of the land registered the well with the State of Nebraska in 1971, but neither they nor the present owners applied for the permit required by Neb.Rev.Stat. § 46-613.01 (1978). That section provides:

"Any person, firm, city, village, municipal corporation or any other entity intending to withdraw ground water from any well or pit located in the State of Nebraska and transport it for use in an adjoining state shall apply to the Department of Water Resources for a permit to do so. If the Director of Water Resources finds that the withdrawal of the ground water requested is reasonable, is not contrary to the conservation and use of ground water, and is not otherwise detrimental to the public welfare, he shall grant the permit if the state in which the water is to be used grants reciprocal rights to withdraw and transport ground water from that state for use in the State of Nebraska."

Appellee brought this action to enjoin appellants from transferring the water across the border without a permit.2 The trial court rejected the defense that the statute imposed an undue burden on interstate commerce and granted the injunction. The Nebraska Supreme Court affirmed. 208 Neb. 703, 305 N.W.2d 614 (1981). It held that, under Nebraska law, ground water is not "a market item freely transferable for value among private parties, and therefore [is] not an article of commerce." Id., at 705, 305 N.W.2d, at 616.3 The Chief Justice, while agreeing that the statutory criteria governing the transfer of water to an adjoining State did not violate the Commerce Clause, dissented on the narrow ground that appellee violated both the Federal and Nebraska Constitutions by attempting "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." Id., at 713, 305 N.W.2d, at 620.

I

In holding that ground water is not an article of commerce, the Nebraska Supreme Court and appellee cite as controlling precedent Hudson County Water Co. v. McCarter, 209 U.S. 349, 28 S.Ct. 529, 52 L.Ed. 828 (1908). In that case a New Jersey statute prohibited the interstate transfer of any surface water located within the State.4 The Hudson County Water Co. nevertheless contracted with New York City to supply one of its boroughs with water from the Passaic River in New Jersey. The State Attorney General sought from the New Jersey courts an injunction against fulfillment of the contract. Over the water company's objections that the statute impaired the obligation of contract, took property without just compensation, interfered with interstate commerce, denied New York citizens the privileges afforded New Jersey citizens, and denied New York citizens the equal protection of the laws, the injunction was granted. This Court, in an opinion by Justice Holmes, affirmed.

Most of the Court's opinion addresses the just compensation claim. Justice Holmes refused to ground the Court's holding, as did the New Jersey state courts,5 on "the more or less attenuated residuum of title that the State may be said to possess." Id., at 355, 28 S.Ct., at 530. For the statute was justified as a regulatory measure that, on balance, did not amount to a taking of property that required just compensation. Putting aside the "problems of irrigation," the State's interest in preserving its waters was well within its police power.6 That interest was not dependent on any demonstration that the State's water resources were inadequate for present or future use. The State "finds itself in possession of what all admit to be a great public good, and what it has it may keep and give no one a reason for its will." Id., at 357, 28 S.Ct., at 531.

Having disposed of the just compensation claim, Justice Holmes turned very briefly to the other constitutional chal- lenges. In one paragraph, he rejected the Contract Clause claim. In the remaining paragraph of the opinion, he rejected all the other defenses. His treatment of the Commerce Clause challenge consists of three sentences: "A man cannot acquire a right to property by his desire to use it in commerce among the States. Neither can he enlarge his otherwise limited and qualified right to the same end. The case is covered in this respect by Geer v. Connecticut, 161 U.S. 519 [, 16 S.Ct. 600, 40 L.Ed. 793] [ (1896) ]." Ibid.

While appellee relies upon Hudson County, appellants rest on our summary affirmance of a three-judge District Court judgment in City of Altus v. Carr, 255 F.Supp. 828 (WD Tex.), summarily aff'd, 385 U.S. 35, 87 S.Ct. 240, 17 L.Ed.2d 34 (1966). The city of Altus is located near the southern border...

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