Cite as: 505 U. S. 144 (1992)
Opinion of White, J.
proval sparked a new round of political squabbling between elected officials from unsited States, who generally opposed ratification of the compacts that were being formed, and their counterparts from the sited States, who insisted that the promises made in the 1980 Act be honored. See Brief for American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations as Amicus Curiae 12-14. In its effort to keep the States at the forefront of the policy amendment process, the National Governors' Association organized more than a dozen meetings to achieve a state consensus. See H. Brown, The Low-Level Waste Handbook: A User's Guide to the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Amendments Act of 1985, p. iv (Nov. 1986) (describing "the states' desire to influence any revisions of the 1980 Act").
These discussions were not merely academic. The sited States grew increasingly and justifiably frustrated by the seeming inaction of unsited States in meeting the projected actions called for in the 1980 Act. Thus, as the end of 1985 approached, the sited States viewed the January 1, 1986, deadline established in the 1980 Act as a "drop-dead" date, on which the regional compacts could begin excluding the entry of out-of-region waste. See 131 Cong. Rec. 35203 (1985). Since by this time the three disposal facilities operating in 1980 were still the only such plants accepting low-level radioactive waste, the unsited States perceived a very serious danger if the three existing facilities actually carried out their threat to restrict access to the waste generated solely within their respective compact regions.
A movement thus arose to achieve a compromise between the sited and the unsited States, in which the sited States agreed to continue accepting waste in exchange for the imposition of stronger measures to guarantee compliance with the unsited States' assurances that they would develop alternative disposal facilities. As Representative Derrick explained, the compromise 1985 legislation "gives nonsited
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