Opinion of BREYER, J.
authorizing a state agency to “site, finance, [and] build” a waste disposal facility. N. C. Gen. Stat. §104G–4 (1987) (repealed 2000). Pursuant to this legislation, a new facility was to be completed by January 1, 1993. Ibid.
From August 1987 until December 1997, North Carolina took a series of steps to prepare for the construction of the storage facility. See Brief for North Carolina in Support of Exceptions to Reports of the Special Master 6–8. And while doing so it continually assured its Compact partners that it “remain[ed] committed to fulfilling its obligations to the Compact to serve as the next host state.” App. 92 (Letter from James G. Martin, Governor of North Carolina, to Carroll R. Campbell, Jr., Governor of South Carolina (October 25, 1990)); Statement of Undisputed Material Facts ¶¶24–26, 28, 33, 37, 39 (detailing press releases, gubernatorial letters, and other statements made by North Carolina expressing its commitment to its Compact obligations).
But North Carolina never secured a license, never obtained adequate funding, and never began construction on a new facility. See Second Report of Special Master 2–3 (hereinafter Second Report). Eventually, the State simply stopped trying: On December 19, 1997, North Carolina informed its fellow member States that it would “commence the orderly shutdown” of the waste disposal “project.” App. 319. After this point, North Carolina admittedly took no further steps toward obtaining a license or building a facility before withdrawing from the Compact in July 1999. Id., at 460 (North Carolina Admissions ¶11 (North Carolina “did not [after 1997] take additional steps to . . . license a waste disposal facility”)); Second Report 10 (“The parties do not dispute that North Carolina did not take additional steps to pursue a license for a waste facility” after December 1997).
Whatever one might think of the sufficiency of North Carolina’s activities during the previous decade, I do not
