Cite as: 513 U. S. 30 (1994)
Opinion of the Court
ket, Levy & Fine, Inc. v. St. Louis Thermal Energy Corp., 948 F. 2d 1084, 1087 (CA8 1991) ("Because Missouri and Illinois are not liable for judgments against Bi-State, there is no policy reason for extending the states' sovereign immunity to Bi-State."); Feeney v. Port Authority Trans-Hudson Corporation, 873 F. 2d, at 631 ("In cases where doubt has existed as to the availability of Eleventh Amendment immunity, the Supreme Court has emphasized the exposure of the state treasury as a critical factor."), aff'd on other grounds, 495 U. S. 299 (1990); Jacintoport Corp. v. Greater Baton Rouge Port Comm'n, 762 F. 2d 435, 440 (CA5 1985) ("One of the most important goals of the immunity of the Eleventh Amendment is to shield states' treasuries. . . . The purpose of the immunity therefore largely disappears when a judgment against the entity does not entail a judgment against the state."), cert. denied, 474 U. S. 1057 (1986). In sum, as New York and New Jersey concede, the "vast majority of Circuits . . . have concluded that the state treasury factor is the most important factor to be considered . . . and, in practice, have generally accorded this factor dispositive weight." Brief for States of New Jersey, New York et al. as Amici Curiae 18-19.
The Port Authority's anticipated and actual financial independence—its long history of paying its own way, see supra, at 37-38, and n. 7, 45-46—contrasts with the situation of transit facilities that place heavy fiscal tolls on their founding States. In Alaska Cargo Transport, Inc. v. Alaska R. Corp., 5 F. 3d 378 (CA9 1993), for example, Eleventh Amendment immunity was accorded a thinly capitalized railroad that depends for its existence on a state-provided "financial safety net of broad dimension." Id., at 381. And in Morris v. Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, 781 F. 2d 218 (CADC 1986), Eleventh Amendment immunity was accorded an interstate transit system whose revenue shortfall Congress and the cooperating States anticipated from the start, an enterprise constantly dependent on funds from
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