Published Monday, October 16, 2000
News ObserverCourt Asks Administration Views on Waste Compact
LAURIE ASSEO
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court sought the Clinton administration's views Monday on whether a regional compact should be allowed to sue North Carolina in the nation's highest court over its failure to build a low-level radioactive waste facility.
Associated Press WriterThe justices asked Justice Department lawyers to file a brief commenting on the case.
North Carolina was among eight states that originally made up the Southeast Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Commission -- one of 10 regional compacts formed after Congress in 1980 encouraged states to create disposal facilities for their low-level radioactive waste.
The Southeast Compact chose North Carolina as the site for its regional dump in 1986. The state received $80 million in development funds, which it spent studying the feasibility of the project, state officials said. In July 1999, North Carolina withdrew from the compact.
The compact's lawyers, saying North Carolina refused to pay the sanction, filed papers with the Supreme Court in July seeking to sue the state in the nation's highest court. The Constitution gives the court "original jurisdiction" to hear lawsuits between states without first having any other court hear the dispute.
Lawyers for the regional compact said the dispute should be heard in the Supreme Court because it is "the only forum in which the states are guaranteed to receive fair and impartial ruling."
The six states remaining in the compact are Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee and Virginia. South Carolina dropped out of the compact in 1995.
The case is Southeast Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management Commission v. North Carolina, 131 Original.