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B-192999 1 (1979-05-22)

handle is hein.gao/gaobacxzz0001 and id is 1 raw text is: COMPTROLLER GENERAL. OF THE UNITED STATES B-192999 iy 22 B The Honorable Pete V. Domenici United States Senate Dear Senator Domenici: You recently requested our opinion concerning the rights of the States with respect to jurisdiction over nuclear waste repositories. In your letter of February 26, 1979 to the Secretary of Energy, you suggest that a nuclear waste repository requires exclusive Federal jurisdiction; that the only way the Federal Government can get such jurisdiction over State property is by purchase with the State legis- lature's consent (or by State legislative cession); and that the State can make its consent conditional andtthe Secretary of Energy can agree to any conditions so imposed. Based upon these premises, you suggest that an agreement between the Secretary of Energy and a State, which would permit the State to veto the establishment of a nuclear waste repository within its boundaries, would be valid and enforceable. In a letter to Chairman John D. Dingell, House Subcommittee on Energy and Power (B-164105, June 19, 1978), we expressed the view that in the absence of specific statutory authority, an agreement by the Secretary of Energy with a State to make his Department's choice of a nuclear waste repository site subject to rejection or disapproval by the State is legally unenforceable. In determining that no statutory authority existed, we relied upon the rejection of an amendment offered by Senator George McGovern to the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, which would have prohibited contracting for or construction of a radio- active waste storage facility if the State legislature or the people of the State by referendum, disapproved of the use of a particular site in that State. This amendment was not acted upon. No provision in the Department of Energy Organization Act, which was subsequently enacted, supports the right of a State to veto a nuclear waste repo- sitory with authority given to it by the Department of Energy. Youa feel, however, that there is a constitutional basis for State concurrence in the use of a site as a nuclear waste facility. You submit that this basis is found in Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 of the United States Constitution, which states that the Congress has power-- To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may,

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