Cite as: 523 U. S. 767 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
setts, 12 Pet. 657, 727 (1838). Indeed, congressional consent "transforms an interstate compact within [the Compact] Clause into a law of the United States," Cuyler v. Adams, 449 U. S. 433, 438 (1981); accord, Texas v. New Mexico, 462 U. S. 554, 564 (1983). Just as if a court were addressing a federal statute, then, the "first and last order of business" of a court addressing an approved interstate compact "is interpreting the compact." Id., at 567-568. "[U]nless the compact to which Congress has consented is somehow unconstitutional, no court may order relief inconsistent with its express terms," id., at 564, no matter what the equities of the circumstances might otherwise invite. See Arizona v. California, 373 U. S. 546, 565-566 (1963) ("[C]ourts have no power to substitute their own notions of an 'equitable apportionment' for the apportionment chosen by Congress"); Washington v. Oregon, 211 U. S. 127, 135 (1908) (noting that Congress had established the boundary between Washington and Oregon in the middle of the north channel, and that "[t]he courts have no power to change the boundary thus prescribed and establish it at the middle of some other channel," even though changes in the waterway over the course of time seemed to indicate the equity of altering the boundary line); cf. New Jersey v. Delaware, 291 U. S. 361, 385 (1934); Maryland v. West Virginia, 217 U. S., at 46.
We appreciate the difficulties of a boundary line that divides not just an island but some of the buildings on it, but these drawbacks are the price of New Jersey's success in litigating under a compact whose fair construction calls for a line so definite.27 See Texas v. New Mexico, supra, at 567, n. 13 (noting that litigation of disputes between States "is obviously a poor alternative to negotiation between the interested States"). A more convenient boundary line must
27 This is the reason that the contemporary inconvenience of the boundary is no threat to the plausibility of the evaluation of the prescription evidence by the Special Master and the Court, as Justice Stevens suggests. See post, at 828-829.
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