4
Opinion of the Court
JJ. O'Connor, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which Scalia and Thomas, JJ., joined, post, p. 20.
John B. Draper, Special Assistant Attorney General of Kansas, argued the cause for plaintiff. With him on the briefs were Carla J. Stovall, Attorney General, John W. Campbell, Chief Deputy Attorney General, John M. Cassidy, Assistant Attorney General, Leland E. Rolfs, Special Assistant Attorney General, and Andrew S. Montgomery.
Jeffrey P. Minear argued the cause for intervenor United States. With him on the briefs were Solicitor General Waxman, Assistant Attorney General Schiffer, Deputy Solicitor General Kneedler, and Patricia Weiss.
David W. Robbins, Special Assistant Attorney General of Colorado, argued the cause for defendant. With him on the briefs were Ken Salazar, Attorney General, Carol D. Angel, Senior Assistant Attorney General, and Dennis M. Montgomery, Special Assistant Attorney General.
Justice Stevens delivered the opinion of the Court. The Arkansas River rises in the mountains of Colorado just east of the Continental Divide, descends for about 280 miles to the Kansas border, then flows through that State, Oklahoma, and Arkansas and empties into the Mississippi River. On May 20, 1901, Kansas first invoked this Court's original jurisdiction to seek a remedy for Colorado's diversion of water from the Arkansas River. See Kansas v. Colorado, 185 U. S. 125, 126 (1902) (statement of case). In opinions written during the past century, most recently in Kansas v. Colorado, 514 U. S. 673, 675-678 (1995), we have described the history and the importance of the river. For present purposes it suffices to note that two of those cases, Kansas v. Colorado, 206 U. S. 46 (1907), and Colorado v. Kansas, 320 U. S. 383 (1943), led to the negotiation of the Arkansas River Compact (Compact), an agreement between Kansas and Colorado that in turn was approved by Congress in 1949. See 63 Stat. 145. The case before us today in-
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