Opinion of the Court State lacks: A State may not decline to administer the federal program. No matter which path the State chooses, it must follow the direction of Congress. The take title provision appears to be unique. No other federal statute has been cited which offers a state government no option other than that of implementing legislation enacted by Congress. Whether one views the take title provision as lying outside Congress' enumerated powers, or as infringing upon the core of state sovereignty reserved by the Tenth Amendment, the provision is inconsistent with the federal structure of our Government established by the Constitution. IV Respondents raise a number of objections to this understanding of the limits of Congress' power. A The United States proposes three alternative views of the constitutional line separating state and federal authority. While each view concedes that Congress generally may not compel state governments to regulate pursuant to federal direction, each purports to find a limited domain in which such coercion is permitted by the Constitution. First, the United States argues that the Constitution's prohibition of congressional directives to state governments can be overcome where the federal interest is sufficiently important to justify state submission. This argument contains a kernel of truth: In determining whether the Tenth Amendment limits the ability of Congress to subject state governments to generally applicable laws, the Court has in some cases stated that it will evaluate the strength of federal interests in light of the degree to which such laws would prevent the State from functioning as a sovereign; that is, the extent to which such generally applicable laws would impede a state government's responsibility to represent and be accountable to the citizens of the State. See, e. g., EEOC v. Opinion of the Court Wyoming, 460 U. S., at 242, n. 17; Transportation Union v. Long Island R. Co., 455 U. S., at 684, n. 9; National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U. S., at 853. The Court has more recently departed from this approach. See, e. g., South Carolina v. Baker, 485 U. S., at 512-513; Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 469 U. S., at 556-557. But whether or not a particularly strong federal interest enables Congress to bring state governments within the orbit of generally applicable federal regulation, no Member of the Court has ever suggested that such a federal interest would enable Congress to command a state government to enact state regulation. No matter how powerful the federal interest involved, the Constitution simply does not give Congress the authority to require the States to regulate. The Constitution instead gives Congress the authority to regulate matters directly and to pre-empt contrary state regulation. Where a federal interest is sufficiently strong to cause Congress to legislate, it must do so directly; it may not conscript state governments as its agents. Second, the United States argues that the Constitution does, in some circumstances, permit federal directives to state governments. Various cases are cited for this proposition, but none support it. Some of these cases discuss the well established power of Congress to pass laws enforceable in state courts. See Testa v. Katt, 330 U. S. 386 (1947); Palmore v. United States, 411 U. S. 389, 402 (1973); see also Second Employers' Liability Cases, 223 U. S. 1, 57 (1912); Claflin v. Houseman, 93 U. S. 130, 136-137 (1876). These cases involve no more than an application of the Supremacy Clause's provision that federal law "shall be the supreme Law of the Land," enforceable in every State. More to the point, all involve congressional regulation of individuals, not congressional requirements that States regulate. Federal statutes enforceable in state courts do, in a sense, direct state judges to enforce them, but this sort of federal "direction" of state judges is mandated by the text of the Suprem Opinion of the Court acy Clause. No comparable constitutional provision authorizes Congress to command state legislatures to legislate. Additional cases cited by the United States discuss the power of federal courts to order state officials to comply with federal law. See Puerto Rico v. Branstad, 483 U. S. 219, 228 (1987); Washington v. Washington State Commercial Passenger Fishing Vessel Assn., 443 U. S. 658, 695 (1979); Illinois v. City of Milwaukee, 406 U. S. 91, 106-108 (1972); see also Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U. S. 1, 18-19 (1958); Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U. S. 294, 300 (1955); Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123, 155–156 (1908). Again, however, the text of the Constitution plainly confers this authority on the federal courts, the "judicial Power" of which "shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, [and] the Laws of the United States. . . ; [and] to Controversies between two or more States; [and] between a State and Citizens of another State." U. S. Const., Art. III, § 2. The Constitution contains no analogous grant of authority to Congress. Moreover, the Supremacy Clause makes federal law paramount over the contrary positions of state officials; the power of federal courts to enforce federal law thus presupposes some authority to order state officials to comply. See Puerto Rico v. Branstad, supra, at 227-228 (overruling Kentucky v. Dennison, 24 How. 66 (1861)). In sum, the cases relied upon by the United States hold only that federal law is enforceable in state courts and that federal courts may in proper circumstances order state officials to comply with federal law, propositions that by no means imply any authority on the part of Congress to mandate state regulation. Third, the United States, supported by the three sited regional compacts as amici, argues that the Constitution envisions a role for Congress as an arbiter of interstate disputes. The United States observes that federal courts, and this Court in particular, have frequently resolved conflicts among States. See, e. g., Arkansas v. Oklahoma, 503 U. S. 91 Opinion of the Court (1992); Wyoming v. Oklahoma, 502 U. S. 437 (1992). Many of these disputes have involved the allocation of shared resources among the States, a category perhaps broad enough to encompass the allocation of scarce disposal space for radioactive waste. See, e. g., Colorado v. New Mexico, 459 U. S. 176 (1982); Arizona v. California, 373 U. S. 546 (1963). The United States suggests that if the Court may resolve such interstate disputes, Congress can surely do the same under the Commerce Clause. The regional compacts support this argument with a series of quotations from The Federalist and other contemporaneous documents, which the compacts contend demonstrate that the Framers established a strong National Legislature for the purpose of resolving trade disputes among the States. Brief for Rocky Mountain LowLevel Radioactive Waste Compact et al. as Amici Curiae 17, and n. 16. While the Framers no doubt endowed Congress with the power to regulate interstate commerce in order to avoid further instances of the interstate trade disputes that were common under the Articles of Confederation, the Framers did not intend that Congress should exercise that power through the mechanism of mandating state regulation. The Constitution established Congress as "a superintending authority over the reciprocal trade" among the States, The Federalist No. 42, p. 268 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961), by empowering Congress to regulate that trade directly, not by authorizing Congress to issue trade-related orders to state governments. As Madison and Hamilton explained, "a sovereignty over sovereigns, a government over governments, a legislation for communities, as contradistinguished from individuals, as it is a solecism in theory, so in practice it is subversive of the order and ends of civil polity." Id., No. 20, at 138. B The sited state respondents focus their attention on the process by which the Act was formulated. They correctly Opinion of the Court observe that public officials representing the State of New York lent their support to the Act's enactment. A Deputy Commissioner of the State's Energy Office testified in favor of the Act. See Low-Level Waste Legislation: Hearings on H. R. 862, H. R. 1046, H. R. 1083, and H. R. 1267 before the Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment of the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, 99th Cong., 1st Sess., 97-98, 190-199 (1985) (testimony of Charles Guinn). Senator Moynihan of New York spoke in support of the Act on the floor of the Senate. 131 Cong. Rec. 38423 (1985). Respondents note that the Act embodies a bargain among the sited and unsited States, a compromise to which New York was a willing participant and from which New York has reaped much benefit. Respondents then pose what appears at first to be a troubling question: How can a federal statute be found an unconstitutional infringement of state sovereignty when state officials consented to the statute's enactment? The answer follows from an understanding of the fundamental purpose served by our Government's federal structure. The Constitution does not protect the sovereignty of States for the benefit of the States or state governments as abstract political entities, or even for the benefit of the public officials governing the States. To the contrary, the Constitution divides authority between federal and state governments for the protection of individuals. State sovereignty is not just an end in itself: "Rather, federalism secures to citizens the liberties that derive from the diffusion of sovereign power." Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U. S. 722, 759 (1991) (BLACKMUN, J., dissenting). “Just as the separation and independence of the coordinate branches of the Federal Government serve to prevent the accumulation of excessive power in any one branch, a healthy balance of power between the States and the Federal Government will reduce the risk of tyranny and abuse from either front." Gregory v. Ash |