Cite as: 505 U. S. 144 (1992)
Opinion of the Court
generated within their borders and becoming liable for all damages waste generators suffer as a result of the States' failure to do so promptly. In this provision, Congress has crossed the line distinguishing encouragement from coercion.
We must initially reject respondents' suggestion that, because the take title provision will not take effect until January 1, 1996, petitioners' challenge thereto is unripe. It takes many years to develop a new disposal site. All parties agree that New York must take action now in order to avoid the take title provision's consequences, and no party suggests that the State's waste generators will have ceased producing waste by 1996. The issue is thus ripe for review. Cf. Pacific Gas & Elec. Co. v. State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Comm'n, 461 U. S. 190, 201 (1983); Regional Rail Reorganization Act Cases, 419 U. S. 102, 144- 145 (1974).
The take title provision offers state governments a "choice" of either accepting ownership of waste or regulating according to the instructions of Congress. Respondents do not claim that the Constitution would authorize Congress to impose either option as a freestanding requirement. On one hand, the Constitution would not permit Congress simply to transfer radioactive waste from generators to state governments. Such a forced transfer, standing alone, would in principle be no different than a congressionally compelled subsidy from state governments to radioactive waste producers. The same is true of the provision requiring the States to become liable for the generators' damages. Standing alone, this provision would be indistinguishable from an Act of Congress directing the States to assume the liabilities of certain state residents. Either type of federal action would "commandeer" state governments into the service of federal regulatory purposes, and would for this reason be inconsistent with the Constitution's division of authority between federal and state governments. On the other hand, the second alternative held out to state governments—regulating pur-
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