Virginia Uranium v. Warren
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 17, 2019 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Decided
- June 17, 2019
- Docket
- No. 16-1275
- Argued
- November 5, 2018
- Term
- October Term 2018
- Vote
- 6–3
- Majority author
- Justice Gorsuch
- Issue area
- Federalism
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
How the Justices voted
- Majority
- Justice Thomas, Justice Gorsuch (wrote), Justice Kavanaugh
- Concurring in the judgment
- Justice Ginsburg (wrote), Justice Sotomayor, Justice Kagan
- Dissenting
- Chief Justice Roberts (wrote), Justice Breyer, Justice Alito
Oral argument transcript and advocates
Opinion excerpt
C If the AEA doesn't occupy the field of radiation safety in uranium mining, Virginia Uranium suggests the statute still displaces state law through what's sometimes called conflict preemption. In particular, the company suggests, Virginia's mining law stands as an impermissible "obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress." Hines v. Davidowitz , 312 U. S. 52, 67, 61 S.Ct. 399, 85 L.Ed. 581 (1941). On Virginia Uranium's account, Congress sought to capture the benefits of developing nuclear power while mitigating its safety and environmental costs. And, the company contends, Virginia's moratorium disrupts the delicate "balance" Congress sought to achieve between these benefits and costs. Maybe the text of the AEA doesn't touch on mining in so many words, but its authority to regulate later stages of the nuclear fuel life cycle would be effectively undermined if mining laws like Virginia's were allowed. A sound preemption analysis cannot be as simplistic as that. No more than in field preemption can the Supremacy Clause be deployed here to elevate abstract and unenacted legislative desires above state law; only federal laws "made in pursuance of" the Constitution, through its prescribed processes of bicameralism and presentment, are entitled to preemptive effect. Art. VI, cl. 2; ISLA Petroleum , 485 U. S. at 503, 108 S.Ct. 1350.…
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