Virginia Uranium, Inc. v. Warren

FEDERAL PREEMPTION OF STATE LAW

According to Virginia Uranium, the AEA, not Virginia state law, regulates the broad field of radiological safety, and as a result, the AEA preempts the Virginia ban on uranium mining. Virginia Uranium argues that a textual reading of the AEA, which is codified at 42 U.S.C. § 2021 (“Section 2021”), only allows states to regulate radiological safety matters such as uranium mining on the condition that they enter into an agreement with the NRC. Under these agreements, Virginia Uranium maintains, the NRC effectively transfers its jurisdictional authority to the State, allowing it to regulate source materials like uranium. Without the existence of such an agreement, Virginia Uranium claims, states can only regulate radiological materials for purposes other than the protection of the public from the dangers of radiation. Regulation for the purpose of public health and safety, Virginia Uranium argues, is a field occupied entirely by the federal government. In support of this claim, Virginia Uranium points to both the text of the AEA and to the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in Pacific Gas & Electric Co. v. State Energy Resources Conservation & Development Commission, (“PG&E”), which established federal law’s jurisdictional occupation of “the entire field of nuclear safety concerns.”

Fundamental principles of the preemption doctrine, Virginia Uranium claims, prevent state regulation of nuclear safety once Congress has designated such regulation as falling under the federal field. For example, Virginia Uranium notes, one tenet of federal conflict preemption holds that a state law conflicts with federal law if it acts as an obstacle to Congress’s purpose in enacting the federal law. Virginia Uranium argues that by delegating nuclear safety regulation to the federal government, Congress sought to encourage the peaceful development of atomic power without potential interference from state or local governments, and to protect the public from hazards associated with radiological materials or technology. Virginia’s ban, Virginia Uranium concludes, represents an obstacle to Congress’s clear purpose of the safe promotion of nuclear power. Virginia Uranium also implies that federal courts have historically recognized this purpose by delegating regulatory power in the nuclear context to federal authorities.

John Warren, in his capacity as the Director of the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy, along with additional Virginia state energy officials (“the Commonwealth”), counters that the AEA does not address, state regulation of uranium mining, and therefore cannot preempt the state regulation. In particular, the Commonwealth claims, Section 2021, which Virginia Uranium focuses on, has nothing to say about state power over uranium. Furthermore, the Commonwealth argues that the field of preempted activities delineated by the AEA only bears on regulation that occurs after uranium has been removed from the earth. Thus, the Commonwealth contends that Congress has explicitly limited federal authority in this area to post-mining regulation, so a mining ban remains unaffected by the federal law. To interpret the law to apply to uranium mining itself would be to improperly expand the field of preemption, the Commonwealth argues. The prevailing trend since the beginning of the nuclear age, the Commonwealth continues, has been to increase, rather than limit, states authority with respect to nuclear development.

The Commonwealth also relies heavily on statutory interpretation, claiming that rather than limit states’ regulatory authority, Section 2021(k) in fact preserves state authority because it prohibits courts from inferring federal preemption from the Section 2021’s other provisions. Therefore, the Commonwealth asserts, Virginia retains its regulatory power over untouched uranium unless and until a federal law alters or limits such power. Section 2021 of the AEA, the Commonwealth stresses, prescribes no such alterationThe Commonwealth also addresses Virginia Uranium’s reliance on PG&E, accusing the petitioners of omitting key language form that case. According to the Commonwealth, P&GE concluded that a state ban on “nuclear construction,” a category of activities including the development of nuclear facilities, was preempted by federal law. The Commonwealth distinguishes “nuclear construction,” which has always been subject to exclusively federal regulation, from uranium mining, and subsequently argues that PG&E’s finding that state nuclear construction was preempted by federal law has no bearing on the facts of this case.

SUBJECTIVE PURPOSE BEHIND STATE LAW

Virginia Uranium highlights language in the AEA that prohibits certain state regulatory purposes—not just specific activities. In particular, Virginia Uranium claims, the federal law prohibits states from engaging in any activity that has the purpose of protecting the public from radiological harms. Virginia Uranium points to what it characterizes as strong evidence that the Virginia mining ban was motivated by the Commonwealth’s interest in radiological safety, such as a detailed state safety study that was commissioned alongside the ban’s enactment. In addition, Virginia Uranium argues, the Commonwealth itself conceded that the purpose behind the uranium ban was, in fact, the protection of the public from safety hazards associated with radioactive materials. The lower courts ignored this concession regarding the purpose of the ban, Virginia Uranium continues, and instead erroneously focused on the activities which the ban purported to regulate.

In any event, Virginia Uranium claims, states will rarely enact laws that purport to regulate activities outside their own jurisdiction, and as a result, courts should focus on states’ true motivation for the laws, rather than merely their stated purpose. According to Virginia Uranium, then, because the state’s purpose in enacting the ban was to protect the public from radiological safety hazards, the ban attempts to regulate a purpose that falls squarely within the NRC’s exclusive jurisdiction. As a result, Virginia Uranium contends, the ban is preempted by the AEA. Finally, Virginia Uranium draws parallels between its urging of the court to scrutinize the Virginia legislature’s intent in order to ascertain the law’s purpose, and a long line of Equal Protection cases in which “a legislature’s improper motive itself [was] cause for courts” to invalidate a law.

The Commonwealth counters that Virginia Uranium wrongly assumes that the purpose of a state law is an easily identified, standalone fact, as opposed to a complex legal question that the Supreme Court has previously declined to answer. The Commonwealth relies on precedent to argue that courts, and particularly appellate courts, are not permitted to go on fact-finding investigations in order to determine the true purpose behind a state law. Furthermore, the Commonwealth claims, proceeding along the lines of a purpose-driven inquiry could lead to anomalous, unpredictable results, in which one state law might be preempted by the AEA while another, nearly identical state law might not, simply because the law’s authors differed in their alleged intentions. . The Commonwealth also suggests that a purpose-driven inquiry would ultimately be ineffective, since a legislature could simply repass an invalid law by changing its stated motive for the law. With respect to Virginia Uranium’s analogy to Equal Protection cases, the Commonwealth responds that the comparison is erroneous because even in an Equal Protection context, merely alleging an improper purpose is not enough to invalidate a law. Finally, the Commonwealth disputes Virginia Uranium’s charge that the Commonwealth “conceded” to the uranium ban’s public health purpose, suggesting that the accusation is ambiguous to the point of being baseless. Even if the respondents had offered such a concession, the Commonwealth claims, it would have no bearing on the outcome of this case, since the ban does not fall within the array of activities preempted by the AEA.