Sandra Day O'Connor

“ A State may again exercise its regulatory powers once the ICC authorizes a carrier's abandonment of service, and, thus, unless the Commission attaches postabandonment conditions to the abandonment certificate, "brings [the Commission's] regulatory mission to an end." ”

“ Even the federal respondents acknowledge that the existence of a taking will rest upon the nature of the state-created property interest that petitioners would have enjoyed absent the federal action and upon the extent that the federal action burdened that interest. See Brief for Federal Respondents 23-24.
Well-established principles will govern analysis of whether the burden the ICC's actions impose upon state-defined real property interests amounts to a compensable taking. ”

“ The ICC may possess the power to postpone enjoyment of reversionary interests, but the Fifth Amendment and well-established doctrine indicate that in certain circumstances the Government must compensate owners of those property interests when it exercises that power. ”

“ As the Court acknowledges, ante, at 8-9, 15-16, state law creates and defines the scope of the reversionary or other real property interests affected by the ICC's actions pursuant to § 208 of the National Trails System Act Amendments of 1983, 16 U.S.C. § 1247 (d) . In determining whether a taking has occurred, "we are mindful of the basic axiom that ' [p] roperty interests . . . are not created by the Constitution. ”