Nuclear waste transport laws...

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
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In the latest reissue of an old Cecil column, the one on nuclear waste disposal,he references an Illinois proposal to exclude nuclear waste import from any states that wouldn’t reciprocate. The column was written in 1982. A little update…

It is now my understanding that this is unconstitutional (law school starts Monday, so I’m not in the right frame of mind to find the specific case out of my Environmental Law casebook from last semester, but I can if there’s any interest.) There was some 90’s case about a state (IIRC, it was New York) that had a law prohibiting the transport of certain waste products through the state, as well as their disposal in the state, when those products originated outside the state. This was found to be unconstitutional, the reason having to do with the fact that only the federal gov’t is allowed to regulate interstate commerce, or that the law was some sort of unallowed restriction thereof, or something to that sort. It might also be the case that the RCRA is seen as precluding state regulation of toxic waste transport.

So now, AFAIK, Illinois would have no choice in the matter.

Link added – CKDH.

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Actually, RexDart, as you read later in the article (which, btw, was written closer to 1999, as later commentary indicates; presumably the date in the banner is incorrect and wasn’t edited), the act Congress passed in 1980 provided that the states could refuse refuse from states which weren’t part of a compact to dispose of LLW. Thus, the constitutional defect in the garbage refusal case would be inapplicable.