Rethinking the Supreme Court’s Interstate Waters Jurisprudence

Rethinking the Supreme Court’s Interstate Waters

Jurisprudence

JAMISON E. COLBURN*

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

I. Doctrinal Conf‌luence: State Dignity, Equity, and Shared Waters . . . . . . . 236

A. Sovereign into Quasi-Sovereign Interests: Of Dignif‌ied Tribunals . . 236

1. Dignif‌ied Tribunal: A Forum of State-State Controversies . . . . 237

2. The Equitable Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

3. Equity’s Burdens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244

B. Remedial Bootstraps: Equity Making the Law? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

1. Original Jurisdiction Opinions as Sources of State Interests . . . 252

II. Revisory Jurisdiction and Judicial Hierarchy: Interests Over Remediable

Injuries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254

A. From Dignif‌ied Tribunal to Pyramid Peak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

1. Holdings on State Interests as “Law”? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262

B. An Equitable and Legal Enclave? Functions Over Forums . . . . . . . 266

III. Jurisdiction to Remedy: Rethinking Interstate Waters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270

A. Cases from Controversies: Rules of Decision As Horizontal and

Vertical Choices of Law. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272

1. ‘Procedural’ Common Law and Beyond. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274

2. Toward a (Judge-Made) Law of State Interests in Inferior

Courts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278

B. Cross-State Claims to Shared Waters: Rethinking Extraterritoriality 283

1. Constitutional (Judge-Made) Choices of Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290

INTRODUCTION

“Interstate waters have been a font of controversy since the founding of the

Nation.”

1

* Joseph H. Goldstein Faculty Scholar & Professor of Law, Penn State University. © 2021, Jamison

E. Colburn. My thanks to Tara Grove and Noah Hall for terrif‌ic comments and conversations on a prior

draft and to Jay Austin for discussions of a more summary, introductory piece that appears in the

Environmental Law Reporter.

1. Arkansas v. Oklahoma, 503 U.S. 91, 98 (1992) (citing Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) 1

(1824)).

233

States’ interests in interstate waters have def‌ied stout efforts to clarify them.

From the time of its f‌irst equitable decree, the bare idea that the Supreme Court

could resolve an interstate f‌ight over a f‌lowing river has been uncontroversial.

2

Reaff‌irmations have been conf‌ident, even poetic.

3

But over the past century, as

the Court ref‌ined its understanding of the limits of federal judge-made law,

4

the

theory that Article III grants authority to delineate states’ rights and duties over

shared waters has become an increasingly prominent and problematic anomaly.

Prominent because of the growing complexity of our water disputes; problematic

for its substitution of an esoteric history of remedial discretion—and the search

for law’s place therein—for workable legal standards applicable in any forum

where an interstate waters dispute arises. This article offers a new synthesis

grounded in the Court’s voluminous work on these interests and the hope that

they may be better sorted and protected in our legal system as it has evolved.

Article III’s judicial federalism began from landmarks like Chisholm v.

Georgia,

5

Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee,

6

and Cohens v. Virginia.

7

But it matured at

milestones like Gibbons v. Ogden,

8

Cooley v. Board of Wardens,

9

Pennsylvania

v. Wheeling & Belmont Bridge Co.,

10

and others where the contours of federal

power over states’ interests in interstate waters were set.

11

Equitable remedial

2. See, e.g., L. Ward Bannister, Interstate Rights in Interstate Streams in the Arid West, 36 HARV. L.

REV. 960, 978 (1922) (“Nothing is more axiomatic in our federal constitution than that the states are

equal in rank and equal in economic opportunity.”).

3. See, e.g., New Jersey v. New York, 283 U.S. 336, 342 (1931) (“A river is more than an amenity, it

is a treasure. It offers a necessity of life that must be rationed among those who have power over it. . . .

Both States have real and substantial interests that must be reconciled as best they may . . . without

quibbling over formulas.”).

4. See O’Melveny & Myers v. FDIC, 512 U.S. 79, 85–89 (1994) (reviewing cases).

5. 2 U.S. (2 Dall.) 419, 451 (1793) (construing the scope of the Court’s original jurisdiction over “all

cases . . . in which a state shall be a party”); see JOHN V. ORTH, THE JUDICIAL POWER OF THE UNITED

STATES: THE ELEVENTH AMENDMENT IN AMERICAN HISTORY 12–14 (1987) (quoting U.S. CONST., Art.

III, § 2, and its construction in Chisholm).

6. 14 U.S. (1 Wheat.) 304, 342 (1816) (construing the Court’s appellate jurisdiction to review and

revise state court judgments).

7. 19 U.S. (6 Wheat.) 264, 393–94 (1821) (construing the Court’s appellate jurisdiction over appeals

of a state’s criminal conviction). See Vicki C. Jackson, The Supreme Court, the Eleventh Amendment,

and State Sovereign Immunity, 98 YALE L.J. 1, 15–39 (1988).

8. 22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) 1, 221 (1824) (holding that state-granted monopolies of shipping in interstate

waters were invalid as against federal licenses to operate).

9. 53 U.S. (12 How.) 299, 321 (1852) (holding that federal statute enacted in 1789 made provision

for state laws requiring competent local pilots to be used in navigating local waters and that

Pennsylvania law f‌it within that valid savings of state law requirements).

10. 54 U.S. (13 How.) 518, 578 (1852) (holding in original jurisdiction action brought by state that

bridge over interstate river which obstructed shipping traff‌ic was actionable injury to upstream state and

that relief would be the “abatement” of the bridge by order of the Court).

11. See The Genesee Chief v. Fitzhugh, 53 U.S. (12 How.) 443, 457–58 (1851); Waring v. Clarke,

46 U.S. (5 How.) 441, 464 (1847); Pollard’s Lessee v. Hagan, 44 U.S. (3 How.) 212, 230 (1845). The

Nineteenth-century expansion of the admiralty jurisdiction on the basis of “locality” (and of

Congress’s legislative powers in turn) is traced carefully by David Robertson. See DAVID W.

ROBERTSON, ADMIRALTY AND FEDERALISM: HISTORY AND ANALYSIS OF PROBLEMS OF FEDERAL-

234 THE GEORGETOWN ENVTL. LAW REVIEW [Vol. 33:233

discretion has long animated Article III scholars.

12

Indeed, it has long been the

basis of appeals to “law of the river” on interstate waters, law that is mystical and

ineffable.

13

But this has kept federal courts locked in an unstable tension between

the Constitution’s federalism and its separation of powers.

14

The categorical

interests states claim equally according to the Court evoke timeless notions of

sovereignty.

15

Since Massachusetts v. EPA,

16

however, an outpouring of work on

state standing under Article III has revealed deep fault lines.

17

State standing has

STATE RELATIONS IN THE MARITIME LAW OF THE UNITED STATES (1970); see generally Note, From

Judicial Grant to Legislative Power: The Admiralty Clause in the Nineteenth Century, 67 HARV. L. REV.

1214 (1954).

12. See generally Michael T. Morley, The Federal Equity Power, 59 B.C. L. REV. 217 (2018);

Kristin A. Collins, “A Considerable Surgical Operation”: Article III, Equity, and Judge-Made Law in

the Federal Courts, 60 DUKE L.J. 249 (2010); David Sloss, Constitutional Remedies for Statutory

Violations, 89 IOWA L. REV. 354 (2004); David Crump, The Twilight Zone of the Erie Doctrine: Is There

Really a Different Choice of Equitable Remedies in the “Court a Block Away”?, 1991 WIS. L. REV.

1233; David L. Shapiro, Jurisdiction and Discretion, 60 N.Y.U. L. REV. 543, 548–50 (1985); Robert F.

Nagle, Separation of Powers the Scope of Federal Equitable Remedies, 30 STAN. L. REV. 661 (1978);

Walter E. Dellinger, Of Rights and Remedies: The Constitution as a Sword, 85 HARV. L. REV. 1532,

1532–33 (1972) (discussing Bivens v. Six Unknown Agents, 403 U.S. 388 (1971)); Alfred L. Hill,

Constitutional Remedies, 69 COLUM. L. REV. 1109 (1969).

13. See DAVID OWEN, WHERE THE WATER GOES: LIFE AND DEATH ALONG THE COLORADO RIVER 24

(2017) (noting that invocations of the ‘Law of the River’ refer to a “complex but loosely def‌ined and

minimally circumscribed body of rules, precedents, habits, treaties, customs and compacts that isn’t

written down all in one place,” but which is invoked “almost any time two water users disagree about

who’s entitled to what”).

14. See e.g., Morley, supra note 12, at 219–24; Collins, supra note 12, at 252–55; Hill, supra note 12.

15. See, e.g., Jack Goldsmith & Daryl Levinson, Law for States: International Law, Constitutional

Law, Public Law, 122 HARV. L. REV. 1791, 1868 (2009) (“[s]tates are not sources of ends in the same

sense as are persons. Instead, states are systems of shared practices and institutions within which

communities of persons establish and advance their ends.” (quoting CHARLES R. BEITZ, POLITICAL

THEORY AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 180 (1979))); cf. New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144,

181 (1992) (“State sovereignty is not just an end in itself: Rather, federalism secures to citizens the

liberties that derive from the diffusion of sovereign power.”).

16. 549 U.S. 497, 518 (2007) (holding that states “are not normal litigants for purposes of invoking

federal jurisdiction” and relaxing at least two elements of standing doctrine for state plaintiffs).

17. See e.g., Seth Davis, The Private Rights of Public Governments, 94 NOTRE DAME L. REV. 2091

(2019) [hereinafter Davis, Private Rights]; Seth Davis, The New Public Standing, 71 STAN. L. REV.

1229 (2019) [hereinafter Davis, Public Standing]; F. Andrew Hessick, Quasi-Sovereign Standing, 94

NOTRE DAME L. REV. 1927 (2019); Margaret H. Lemos & Ernest A. Young, State Public-Law Litigation

in an Age of Polarization, 97 TEX. L. REV. 43 (2018); James Pfander, Standing, Litigable Interest, and

Article III’s Case-or-Controversy Requirement, 65 UCLA L. REV. 170 (2018); Tara Leigh Grove, When

Can a State Sue the United States?, 101 CORNELL L. REV. 851 (2016); Shannon M. Roesler, State

Standing to Challenge Federal Authority in the Modern Administrative State, 91 WASH. L. REV. 637

(2016); Richard H. Fallon, Jr., The Fragmentation of Standing, 93 TEX. L. REV. 1061, 1081–84 (2015);

Ann Woolhandler, Governmental Sovereignty Actions, 23 WM. & MARY BILL RTS. J. 209 (2014);

Katherine Mims Crocker, Note—Securing Sovereign State Standing, 97 VA. L. REV. 2051 (2011);

Bradford Mank, Should States Have Greater Standing Rights than Ordinary Citizens? Massachusetts v.

EPA’s New Standing Test for States, 49 WM. & MARY L. REV. 1701 (2008); Robert V. Percival,

Massachusetts v. EPA: Escaping the Common Law’s Growing Shadow, SUP. CT. REV. 111 (2008).

2021] INTERSTATE WATERS JURISPRUDENCE 235