WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court seemed ready Wednesday to give New Jersey to withdraw from a commission the state managed decades ago with New York to combat the mob's achieve at their joint port.

During arguments at the high risk both liberal and conservative justices suggested that the Garden State doesn't need New York's consent to withdraw from the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor. The commission was created in 1953 when organized crime had infiltrated the port and was demanding payments from workers and shippers ended extortion and violence.

The two-member commission — with one commissioner from each spot — oversees licensing and inspections at the Port of New York and New Jersey and has its own police force.

The commission's inquire of followed by several decades the creation of the vastly bigger Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which oversees transportation infrastructure in the region.

Chief Justice John Roberts at one exhibit during argument said it seemed to him that when 70 years of the Waterfront Commission's operation "it's touching to take a long time and hard work to kind of unravel all of this" if New Jersey wants to walk away.

At novel point, however, Roberts distinguished the Port Authority from the Waterfront Commission, which he called a "very important but relatively shrimp enterprise dealing with a particular problem." Roberts suggested to Judith Vale, who was arguing on for of New York, that it would be "not that disruptive" for New Jersey to withdraw.

Vale pushed back, suggesting the commission, which employs about 70 people, makes it "harder for corruption and undue result to succeed."

Justice Amy Coney Barrett told Vale that it "seems very odd" that New York wants to hang on to the commission when the greatest of the port's business goes through its New Jersey side.

At the time the commission was caused, about 70 percent of the port's business came ended the New York side of the port. Now, in the era of tin shipping, about 80 percent of cargo goes through New Jersey.

New Jersey lawmakers say attempts in the industry, including the development of container shipping, have lessened the influence of organized crime at the port and reduced the need for the commission. The state says the commission has become "an impediment to economic growth."

In 2018, then-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, signed legislation withdrawing his state from the compact. Ultimately, however, New York took the issue to the Supreme Court, which handles disputes between states.

The language of the compact creating the commission does not specifically complex whether either state can decide on its own to withdraw. But New Jersey argued, among other things, that "mere silence as to withdrawal grants one State no basis to hold another hostage to a compact forever." Some justices also observed particularly persuaded by New Jersey's assertion that the commission was always designed to be temporary.

"We know here that the parties never designed for this to be perpetual," said Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who grew up in New York.

Elena Kagan, who also grew up in New York, was likewise skeptical of the state's argument as was the court's only member from New Jersey, Justice Samuel Alito.

New Jersey has the support of the Biden management, which has told the court that the compact's text suggests either spot can withdraw on its own.

New York argued that when the compact was written, the states "intended to prohibit unilateral termination, not grant it."