486
Opinion of the Court
policy of immediate access to federal forums are as much applicable to tribal- as to state-court litigation.
The Act provides clear indications of the congressional aims of speed and efficiency. Section 2210(n)(3)(A) empowers the chief judge of a district court to appoint a special caseload management panel to oversee cases arising from a nuclear incident. The functions of such panels include case consolidation, § 2210(n)(3)(C)(i); setting of priorities, § 2210(n)(3)(C)(ii); "promulgat[ion] [of] special rules of court . . . to expedite cases or allow more equitable consideration of claims," § 2210(n)(3)(C)(v); and implementation of such measures "as will encourage the equitable, prompt, and efficient resolution of cases arising out of the nuclear incident," § 2210(n)(3)(C)(vi).
The terms of the Act are underscored by its legislative history, which expressly refers to the multitude of separate cases brought "in various state and Federal courts" in the aftermath of the Three Mile Island accident. See S. Rep. No. 100-218, at 13. This history adverts to the expectation that "the provisions for consolidation of claims in the event of any nuclear incident . . . would avoid the inefficiencies resulting from duplicative determinations of similar issues in multiple jurisdictions that may occur in the absence of consolidation." Ibid.
Applying tribal exhaustion would invite precisely the mischief of "duplicative determinations" and consequent "inefficiencies" that the Act sought to avoid, and the force of the congressional concerns saps the two arguable justifications for applying tribal exhaustion of any plausibility in these circumstances. The first possible justification might be that tribal exhaustion is less troubling than state-court exhaustion, because in the former situation the district court may review jurisdiction after recourse to tribal court has been exhausted, see National Farmers Union Ins. Cos., 471 U. S.,
for conversion of state claims to federal ones and removal to federal courts express congressional preference for a federal forum.
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