456 U.S. 742, 787-788 (1982)
In November 1978 President Carter signed the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 into law.1
The statute formed part of a broader legislative package enacted the same day to address the national energy crisis.2
PURPA's Titles I and III required state utility commissions and nonregulated utilities to consider adopting particular rate design and regulatory standards for electricity and gas.3
Consideration was required by November 1980 with decisions due by November 1981.4
Section 210 of Title II directed FERC to issue rules promoting cogeneration and small power production facilities.5
It also required state authorities to implement those rules through adjudication or other means.6
In April 1979 the State of Mississippi and the Mississippi Public Service Commission commenced this action in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi against FERC and the Secretary of Energy.7
The plaintiffs sought a declaratory judgment that Titles I and III and Section 210 of PURPA were unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause and the Tenth Amendment.8
Mississippi Power & Light Company intervened as an additional plaintiff.9
Following cross-motions for summary judgment the district court issued an unreported opinion.10
It ruled that Congress had exceeded its Commerce Clause authority.11
The court also held that PURPA violated state sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment.12
It relied on Carter v. Carter Coal Co. and National League of Cities v. Usery.13
The court concluded that the Act intruded on traditional state functions in regulating public utilities.14
The defendants appealed directly to the Supreme Court under 28 U.S.C. § 1252.15
The Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction.16
It heard argument in January 1982.17
Whether Titles I and III and § 210 of the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 exceed Congress's power under the Commerce Clause?18
Legislation enacted under the Commerce Clause comes to the Court with a presumption of constitutionality.19 A court may invalidate such legislation only if there is no rational basis for a congressional finding that the regulated activity affects interstate commerce or if there is no reasonable connection between the regulatory means selected and the asserted ends.20
No. In November 1978 President Carter signed PURPA into law as part of a legislative package addressing the national energy crisis.21
Titles I and III directed state commissions to consider rate design standards.22
Section 210 directed FERC to promulgate rules requiring utilities to purchase from and sell to qualifying cogeneration and small power production facilities.23
Congress made specific findings in § 2 of the Act that the regulated activities have an immediate effect on interstate commerce.24
Those findings were supported by extensive legislative history documenting the nationwide scope of energy problems.25
The electricity industry consumed more than twenty-five percent of the Nation's energy resources.26
Electric energy is a basic element of interstate commerce.27
Utilities in Mississippi itself sell power generated in part beyond state borders and offer reciprocal services to out-of-state utilities.28
The congressional findings therefore supply a rational basis for concluding that the regulated activities affect interstate commerce and that the chosen means are reasonably adapted to protecting that commerce.29
Titles I and III and § 210 of PURPA do not exceed Congress's power under the Commerce Clause.30
Whether Titles I and III of PURPA violate the Tenth Amendment by requiring state regulatory authorities to consider specified ratemaking standards and follow prescribed procedures?31
The Tenth Amendment does not forbid Congress from conditioning a state's continued participation in the regulation of a field that Congress could have preempted entirely upon the state's consideration of federal standards.32 The Tenth Amendment also permits conditioning that participation upon adherence to minimum procedural requirements.33 Such a scheme of cooperative federalism does not compel the state to enact legislation or exercise its sovereign powers.34 It merely offers the state a choice between regulating consistently with federal proposals or abandoning regulation in the field.35
No. Titles I and III require state commissions only to consider after public hearing and with written findings a series of federal rate-design and regulatory standards by November 1981.36
The statute expressly permits any state to determine that implementation is not appropriate or to adopt different standards of its own.37
Mississippi already provides interested persons the right to petition its Public Service Commission and to appeal commission orders.38
The federal procedural minima therefore do not impose novel burdens.39
Because Congress could have preempted the entire field of retail utility regulation the less intrusive requirement that states merely consider federal proposals while retaining ultimate policy discretion does not impair the states' separate and independent existence or their ability to function effectively in the federal system.40
Titles I and III of PURPA do not violate the Tenth Amendment.41
Related opinions on this issue
Justice Powell concurred in the judgment upholding the substantive provisions of Titles I and III but dissented from the Court's approval of the procedural requirements.42 He maintained that the statute for the first time breaks with longstanding deference to state administrative autonomy by prescribing intervention rights enforcement actions and judicial review procedures that supplant state-prescribed rules.43 Although he acknowledged that precedents supported the substantive standards he concluded that the procedural mandates intrude upon core areas of state administrative and judicial procedure and therefore violate the Tenth Amendment.44
Joined by The Chief Justice And Justice Rehnquist
Justice O'Connor dissented from Parts IV-B and IV-C.45 She argued that Titles I and III conscript state utility commissions into the national bureaucratic army by forcing them to place a dozen federal proposals on their regulatory agendas to follow detailed procedures and to defend their decisions in state court.46 In her view this directly impairs the states' ability to structure integral operations in a traditional governmental function blurs lines of political accountability and is inconsistent with the constitutional history showing that the Framers rejected any system in which the national legislature would employ state legislative power to achieve national ends.47
Whether § 210 of PURPA violates the Tenth Amendment by requiring state regulatory authorities to implement FERC rules for purchases and sales by cogeneration and small power production facilities?48
Congress may require state regulatory authorities that already possess jurisdiction over analogous state claims to adjudicate federal claims arising under a valid exercise of the commerce power.49 State tribunals are obligated to respect the supreme federal policy.50 Such adjudication does not compel the exercise of sovereign legislative power.51
No. Section 210 authorizes FERC to promulgate rules requiring utilities to purchase from and sell to qualifying facilities and directs state authorities to implement those rules.52
FERC's regulations permit implementation through adjudication of disputes a function the Mississippi Public Service Commission already performs under state law for similar utility matters.53
Under the principle of Testa v. Katt a state commission with adequate jurisdiction over analogous claims must make its adjudicatory machinery available for the vindication of federal rights.54
Requiring it to do so here does not commandeer the state's legislative processes or impair its sovereign functions.55
Section 210 of PURPA does not violate the Tenth Amendment.56
Related opinions on this issue
Justice Powell concurred in the Court's decision to uphold § 210 against the facial attack.57 He noted that the implementation requirement can be satisfied by adjudicating private disputes a task the Mississippi commission already performs and that precedent prevents a state from discriminating against federal claims.58 He cautioned however that particular applications of the enforcement provisions might raise future federalism issues to be addressed in concrete controversies.59
Joined by The Chief Justice And Justice Rehnquist
Justice O'Connor concurred in the judgment that § 210 is constitutional.60 She agreed that the provision which authorizes FERC to exempt qualifying facilities from certain state laws and requires states to implement purchase and sale rules does not intrude impermissibly on state sovereignty in the manner of Titles I and III.61