orth Carolina and Virginia share several Army Corps of Engineers impoundments in the Staunton (VA)/Roanoke (NC) River watershed, including Kerr Lake. Kerr Lake is an important stripped bass fishery, providing recreational economic benefit to both states.

To protect the fishery, the respective wildlife management departments of North Carolina and Virginia enter into a cooperative agreement regarding creel limits for striped bass, at five (5) per day. In return, both states agree to a special fishing license that allows residents of each state to fish the entire lake on either side of the state line that bisects the lake.

A recreational fishing organization in Virginia petitions the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (VDGIF) to increase the creel limit on the Virginia side of Kerr Lake to seven (7) striped bass per day, and VDGIF complies.

North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission (NCWRC) files suit against Virginia in the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia for breach of the cooperative agreement.

Assuming a federal district court can take jurisdiction in the matter, what is the result and why?

Select one:

a.

The cooperative agreement is declared void because only the US Fish and Wildlife Service has jurisdiction over game in waters shared between two states

b.

North Carolina's case is dismissed because, without Congressional legislation approving this sort of cooperative agreement, there is no injury for which North Carolina can hold Virginia accountable under this cooperative agreement

c.

Virginia is forced to comply with the cooperative agreement because stripped bass is a species important to interstate commerce

d.

North Carolina's case is dismissed unless North Carolina can produce expert testimony establishing to the court's satisfaction that Virginia's creel limit increase is damaging to stocks of stripped bass in North Carolina