JUSTICE STEWART delivered the opinion of the Court.

[1] A New Jersey law prohibits the importation of most “solid or liquid waste which originated or was collected outside the territorial limits of the State . . . .” In this case we are required to decide whether this statutory prohibition violates the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution.

I

[2] The statutory provision in question is ch. 363 of 1973 N. J. Laws, which took effect in early 1974. In pertinent part it provides:

[3] “No person shall bring into this State any solid or liquid waste which originated or was collected outside the territorial limits of the State, except garbage to be fed to swine in the State of New Jersey, until the commissioner [of the State Department of Environmental Protection] shall determine that such action can be permitted without endangering the public health, safety and welfare and has promulgated regulations permitting and regulating the treatment and disposal of such waste in this State.” N. J. Stat. Ann. § 13:1I-10 (West Supp. 1978).

**

[4] Immediately affected by these developments were the operators of private landfills in New Jersey, and several cities in other States that had agreements with these operators for waste disposal. They brought suit against New Jersey and its Department of Environmental Protection in state court, attacking the statute and regulations on a number of state and federal grounds.

**

[5] All objects of interstate trade merit Commerce Clause protection; none is excluded by definition at the outset. In Bowman and similar cases, the Court held simply that because the articles’ worth in interstate commerce was far outweighed by the dangers inhering in their very movement, States could prohibit their transportation across state lines. Hence, we reject the state court’s suggestion that the banning of “valueless” out-of-state wastes by ch. 363 implicates no constitutional protection. Just as Congress has power to regulate the interstate movement of these wastes, States are not free from constitutional scrutiny when they restrict that movement.

III

[6] Although the Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate commerce among the States, many subjects of potential federal regulation under that power inevitably escape congressional attention “because of their local character and their number and diversity.” South Carolina State Highway Dept. v. Barnwell Bros., Inc., 303 U. S. 177, 185. In the absence of federal legislation, these subjects are open to control by the States so long as they act within the restraints imposed by the Commerce Clause itself.

**

[7] The opinions of the Court through the years have reflected an alertness to the evils of “economic isolation” and protectionism, while at the same time recognizing that incidental burdens on interstate commerce may be unavoidable when a State legislates to safeguard the health and safety of its people. Thus, where simple economic protectionism is effected by state legislation, a virtually per se rule of invalidity has been erected. The clearest example of such legislation is a law that overtly blocks the flow of interstate commerce at a State’s borders.

**

[8] The crucial inquiry, therefore, must be directed to determining whether ch. 363 is basically a protectionist measure, or whether it can fairly be viewed as a law directed to legitimate local concerns, with effects upon interstate commerce that are only incidental.

[9] The purpose of ch. 363 is set out in the statute itself as follows:

[10] “The Legislature finds and determines that . . . the volume of solid and liquid waste continues to rapidly increase, that the treatment and disposal of these wastes continues to pose an even greater threat to the quality of the environment of New Jersey, that the available and appropriate land fill sites within the State are being diminished, that the environment continues to be threatened by the treatment and disposal of waste which originated or was collected outside the State, and that the public health, safety and welfare require that the treatment and disposal within this State of all wastes generated outside of the State be prohibited.”

**

[11] Contrary to the evident assumption of the state court and the parties, the evil of protectionism can reside in legislative means as well as legislative ends. Thus, it does not matter whether the ultimate aim of ch. 363 is to reduce the waste disposal costs of New Jersey residents or to save remaining open lands from pollution, for we assume New Jersey has every right to protect its residents’ pocketbooks as well as their environment. And it may be assumed as well that New Jersey may pursue those ends by slowing the flow of all waste into the State’s remaining landfills, even though interstate commerce may incidentally be affected. But whatever New Jersey’s ultimate purpose, it may not be accomplished by discriminating against articles of commerce coming from outside the State unless there is some reason, apart from their origin, to treat them differently. Both on its face and in its plain effect, ch. 363 violates this principle of nondiscrimination.

[12] The Court has consistently found parochial legislation of this kind to be constitutionally invalid, whether the ultimate aim of the legislation was to assure a steady supply of milk by erecting barriers to allegedly ruinous outside competition, Baldwin v. G. A. F. Seelig, Inc., 294 U. S., at 522-524; or to create jobs by keeping industry within the State, Foster-Fountain Packing Co. v. Haydel, 278 U. S. 1, 10; Johnson v. Haydel, 278 U. S. 16; Toomer v. Witsell, 334 U. S., at 403-404; or to preserve the State’s financial resources from depletion by fencing out indigent immigrants, Edwards v. California, 314 U. S. 160, 173-174. In each of these cases, a presumably legitimate goal was sought to be achieved by the illegitimate means of isolating the State from the national economy.

**

[13] The New Jersey law at issue in this case falls squarely within the area that the Commerce Clause puts off limits to state regulation. On its face, it imposes on out-of-state commercial interests the full burden of conserving the State’s remaining landfill space.

**

[14] The New Jersey law blocks the importation of waste in an obvious effort to saddle those outside the State with the entire burden of slowing the flow of refuse into New Jersey’s remaining landfill sites. That legislative effort is clearly impermissible under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution.

[15] Today, cities in Pennsylvania and New York find it expedient or necessary to send their waste into New Jersey for disposal, and New Jersey claims the right to close its borders to such traffic. Tomorrow, cities in New Jersey may find it expedient or necessary to send their waste into Pennsylvania or New York for disposal, and those States might then claim the right to close their borders. The Commerce Clause will protect New Jersey in the future, just as it protects her neighbors now, from efforts by one State to isolate itself in the stream of interstate commerce from a problem shared by all. The judgment is

[16] Reversed.

JUSTICE REHNQUIST, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE joins, dissenting.

[1] A growing problem in our Nation is the sanitary treatment and disposal of solid waste. For many years, solid waste was incinerated. Because of the significant environmental problems attendant on incineration, however, this method of solid waste disposal has declined in use in many localities, including New Jersey. “Sanitary” landfills have replaced incineration as the principal method of disposing of solid waste. In ch. 363 of the 1973 N. J. Laws, the State of New Jersey legislatively recognized the unfortunate fact that landfills also present extremely serious health and safety problems. First, in New Jersey, “virtually all sanitary landfills can be expected to produce leachate, a noxious and highly polluted liquid which is seldom visible and frequently pollutes . . . ground and surface waters.” App. 149. The natural decomposition process which occurs in landfills also produces large quantities of methane and thereby presents a significant explosion hazard. Id., at 149, 156-157. Landfills can also generate “health hazards caused by rodents, fires and scavenger birds” and, “needless to say, do not help New Jersey’s aesthetic appearance nor New Jersey’s noise or water or air pollution problems.” Supp. App. 5.

**

[2] The question presented in this case is whether New Jersey must also continue to receive and dispose of solid waste from neighboring States, even though these will inexorably increase the health problems discussed above. The Court answers this question in the affirmative. New Jersey must either prohibit all landfill operations, leaving itself to cast about for a presently nonexistent solution to the serious problem of disposing of the waste generated within its own borders, or it must accept waste from every portion of the United States, thereby multiplying the health and safety problems which would result if it dealt only with such wastes generated within the State. Because past precedents establish that the Commerce Clause does not present appellees with such a Hobson’s choice, I dissent.

[3] The Court recognizes, ante, at 621-622, that States can prohibit the importation of items “`which, on account of their existing condition, would bring in and spread disease, pestilence, and death, such as rags or other substances infected with the germs of yellow fever or the virus of small-pox, or cattle or meat or other provisions that are diseased or decayed, or otherwise, from their condition and quality, unfit for human use or consumption.'” As the Court points out, such “quarantine laws have not been considered forbidden protectionist measures, even though they were directed against out-of-state commerce.”

[4] In my opinion, these cases are dispositive of the present one. Under them, New Jersey may require germ-infected rags or diseased meat to be disposed of as best as possible within the State, but at the same time prohibit the importation of such items for disposal at the facilities that are set up within New Jersey for disposal of such material generated within the State. The physical fact of life that New Jersey must somehow dispose of its own noxious items does not mean that it must serve as a depository for those of every other State. Similarly, New Jersey should be free under our past precedents to prohibit the importation of solid waste because of the health and safety problems that such waste poses to its citizens. The fact that New Jersey continues to, and indeed must continue to, dispose of its own solid waste does not mean that New Jersey may not prohibit the importation of even more solid waste into the State. I simply see no way to distinguish solid waste, on the record of this case, from germinfected rags, diseased meat, and other noxious items.

[5] The Court’s effort to distinguish these prior cases is unconvincing. It first asserts that the quarantine laws which have previously been upheld “banned the importation of articles such as diseased livestock that required destruction as soon as possible because their very movement risked contagion and other evils.”

**

[6] Solid waste which is a health hazard when it reaches its destination may in all likelihood be an equally great health hazard in transit.

**

[7] [T]he Court implies that the challenged laws must be invalidated because New Jersey has left its landfills open to domestic waste. But, as the Court notes, ante, at 628, this Court has repeatedly upheld quarantine laws “even though they appear to single out interstate commerce for special treatment.”

**

[8] The Supreme Court of New Jersey expressly found that ch. 363 was passed “to preserve the health of New Jersey residents by keeping their exposure to solid waste and landfill areas to a minimum.” The Court points to absolutely no evidence that would contradict this finding by the New Jersey Supreme Court. Because I find no basis for distinguishing the laws under challenge here from our past cases upholding state laws that prohibit the importation of items that could endanger the population of the State, I dissent.

JUSTICE BRENNAN delivered the opinion of the Court.

[1] The question presented for decision is whether Okla. Stat., Tit. 29, § 4-115 (B) (Supp. 1978), violates the Commerce Clause, of the United States Constitution, insofar as it provides that “[n]o person may transport or ship minnows for sale outside the state which were seined or procured within the waters of this state . . . .”

**

[2] Appellant William Hughes holds a Texas license to operate a commercial minnow business near Wichita Falls, Tex. An Oklahoma game ranger arrested him on a charge of violating § 4-115 (B) by transporting from Oklahoma to Wichita Falls a load of natural minnows purchased from a minnow dealer licensed to do business in Oklahoma.

**

[3] We turn then to the question whether the burden imposed on interstate commerce in wild game by § 4-115 (B) is permissible under the general rule articulated in our precedents governing other types of commerce. Under that general rule, we must inquire (1) whether the challenged statute regulates evenhandedly with only “incidental” effects on interstate commerce, or discriminates against interstate commerce either on its face or in practical effect; (2) whether the statute serves a legitimate local purpose; and, if so, (3) whether alternative means could promote this local purpose as well without discriminating against interstate commerce. The burden to show discrimination rests on the party challenging the validity of the statute, but “[w]hen discrimination against commerce . . . is demonstrated, the burden falls on the State to justify it both in terms of the local benefits flowing from the statute and the unavailability of non-discriminatory alternatives adequate to preserve the local interests at stake.”

**

[4] Section 4-115 (B) on its face discriminates against interstate commerce. It forbids the transportation of natural minnows out of the State for purposes of sale, and thus “overtly blocks the flow of interstate commerce at [the] State’s borders.”Philadelphia v. New Jersey, 437 U. S., at 624. Such facial discrimination by itself may be a fatal defect, regardless of the State’s purpose, because “the evil of protectionism can reside in legislative means as well as legislative ends.” At a minimum such facial discrimination invokes the strictest scrutiny of any purported legitimate local purpose and of the absence of nondiscriminatory alternatives.

[5] Oklahoma argues that § 4-115 (B) serves a legitimate local purpose in that it is “readily apparent as a conservation measure.” The State’s interest in maintaining the ecological balance in state waters by avoiding the removal of inordinate numbers of minnows may well qualify as a legitimate local purpose. We consider the State’s interests in conservation and protection of wild animals as legitimate local purposes similar to the States’ interests in protecting the health and safety of their citizens. . . The fiction of state ownership may no longer be used to force those outside the State to bear the full costs of “conserving” the wild animals within its borders when equally effective nondiscriminatory conservation measures are available.

[6] Far from choosing the least discriminatory alternative, Oklahoma has chosen to “conserve” its minnows in the way that most overtly discriminates against interstate commerce. The State places no limits on the numbers of minnows that can be taken by licensed minnow dealers; nor does it limit in any way how these minnows may be disposed of within the State. Yet it forbids the transportation of any commercially significant number of natural minnows out of the State for sale. Section 4-115 (B) is certainly not a “last ditch” attempt at conservation after nondiscriminatory alternatives have proved unfeasible. It is rather a choice of the most discriminatory means even though nondiscriminatory alternatives would seem likely to fulfill the State’s purported legitimate local purpose more effectively.

[7] We therefore hold that § 4-115 (B) is repugnant to the Commerce Clause.

[8] Reversed.

JUSTICE REHNQUIST, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE joins, dissenting.

**

[1] Contrary to the view of the Court, I do not think that Oklahoma’s regulation of the commercial exploitation of natural minnows either discriminates against out-of-state enterprises in favor of local businesses or that it burdens the interstate commerce in minnows. At least, no such showing has been made on the record before us. This is not a case where a State’s regulation permits residents to export naturally seined minnows but prohibits nonresidents from so doing. No person is allowed to export natural minnows for sale outside of Oklahoma; the statute is evenhanded in its application. The State has not used its power to protect its own citizens from outside competition Nor is this a case where a State requires a nonresident business, as a condition to exporting minnows, to move a significant portion of its operations to the State or to use certain state resources in pursuit of its business for the benefit of the local economy. And, notwithstanding the Court’s protestations to the contrary, Oklahoma has not blocked the flow of interstate commerce in minnows at the State’s borders. Appellant, or anyone else, may freely export as many minnows as he wishes, so long as the minnows so transported are hatchery minnows and not naturally seined minnows. On this record, I simply fail to see how interstate commerce in minnows, the commodity at issue here, is impeded in the least by Oklahoma’s regulatory scheme.

**

JUSTICE STONE delivered the opinion of the Court.

[1] Act No. 259 of the General Assembly of South Carolina, of April 28, 1933, prohibits use on the state highways of motor trucks and “semi-trailer motor trucks” whose width exceeds 90 inches, and whose weight including load exceeds 20,000 pounds. For purposes of the weight limitation § 2 of the statute provides that a semi-trailer motor truck, which is a motor propelled truck with a trailer whose front end is designed to be attached to and supported by the truck, shall be considered a single unit. The principal question for decision is whether these prohibitions impose an unconstitutional burden upon interstate commerce.

**

[2] The district court of three judges, after hearing evidence, ruled that . . . the challenged provisions, being an exercise of the state’s power to regulate the use of its highways so as to protect them from injury and to insure their safe and economical use, do not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. But it held that the weight and width prohibitions place an unlawful burden on interstate motor traffic passing over specified highways of the state, which for the most part are of concrete or a concrete base surfaced with asphalt. It accordingly enjoined the enforcement of the weight provision against interstate motor carriers on the specified highways, and also the width limitation of 90 inches, except in the case of vehicles exceeding 96 inches in width.

**

[3] The trial court rested its decision that the statute unreasonably burdens interstate commerce, upon findings, not assailed here, that there is a large amount of motor truck traffic passing interstate in the southeastern part of the United States, which would normally pass over the highways of South Carolina, but which will be barred from the state by the challenged restrictions if enforced, and upon its conclusion that, when viewed in the light of their effect upon interstate commerce, these restrictions are unreasonable.

[4] To reach this conclusion the court weighed conflicting evidence and made its own determinations as to the weight and width of motor trucks commonly used in interstate traffic and the capacity of the specified highways of the state to accommodate such traffic without injury to them or danger to their users. It found that interstate carriage by motor trucks has become a national industry; that from 85 to 90% of the motor trucks used in interstate transportation are 96 inches wide and of a gross weight, when loaded, of more than ten tons; that only four other states prescribe a gross load weight as low as 20,000 pounds; and that the American Association of State Highway Officials and the National Conference on Street and Highway Safety in the Department of Commerce have recommended for adoption weight and width limitations in which weight is limited to axle loads of 16,000 to 18,000 pounds and width is limited to 96 inches.

**

[5] While the constitutional grant to Congress of power to regulate interstate commerce has been held to operate of its own force to curtail state power in some measure, it did not forestall all state action affecting interstate commerce. Ever since Willson v. Black Bird Creek Marsh Co., 2 Pet. 245, and Cooley v. Board of Port Wardens, 12 How. 299, it has been recognized that there are matters of local concern, the regulation of which unavoidably involves some regulation of interstate commerce but which, because of their local character and their number and diversity, may never be fully dealt with by Congress. Notwithstanding the commerce clause, such regulation in the absence of Congressional action has for the most part been left to the states by the decisions of this Court, subject to the other applicable constitutional restraints.

**

[6] [T]he present case affords no occasion for saying that the bare possession of power by Congress to regulate the interstate traffic forces the states to conform to standards which Congress might, but has not adopted, or curtails their power to take measures to insure the safety and conservation of their highways which may be applied to like traffic moving intrastate. Few subjects of state regulation are so peculiarly of local concern as is the use of state highways. There are few, local regulation of which is so inseparable from a substantial effect on interstate commerce. Unlike the railroads, local highways are built, owned and maintained by the state or its municipal subdivisions. The state has a primary and immediate concern in their safe and economical administration. The present regulations, or any others of like purpose, if they are to accomplish their end, must be applied alike to interstate and intrastate traffic both moving in large volume over the highways. The fact that they affect alike shippers in interstate and intrastate commerce in large number within as well as without the state is a safeguard against their abuse.

**

[7] The nature of the authority of the state over its own highways has often been pointed out by this Court. It may not, under the guise of regulation, discriminate against interstate commerce. But “In the absence of national legislation especially covering the subject of interstate commerce, the State may rightly prescribe uniform regulations adapted to promote safety upon its highways and the conservation of their use, applicable alike to vehicles moving in interstate commerce and those of its own citizens.” Morris v. Duby, 274 U.S. 135, 143.

**

[8] Congress, in the exercise of its plenary power to regulate interstate commerce, may determine whether the burdens imposed on it by state regulation, otherwise permissible, are too great, and may, by legislation designed to secure uniformity or in other respects to protect the national interest in the commerce, curtail to some extent the state’s regulatory power. But that is a legislative, not a judicial function, to be performed in the light of the Congressional judgment of what is appropriate regulation of interstate commerce, and the extent to which, in that field, state power and local interests should be required to yield to the national authority and interest. In the absence of such legislation the judicial function, under the commerce clause as well as the Fourteenth Amendment, stops with the inquiry whether the state legislature in adopting regulations such as the present has acted within its province, and whether the means of regulation chosen are reasonably adapted to the end sought.

[9] Here the first inquiry has already been resolved by our decisions that a state may impose non-discriminatory restrictions with respect to the character of motor vehicles moving in interstate commerce as a safety measure and as a means of securing the economical use of its highways. In resolving the second, courts do not sit as legislatures, either state or national. They cannot act as Congress does when, after weighing all the conflicting interests, state and national, it determines when and how much the state regulatory power shall yield to the larger interests of a national commerce. And in reviewing a state highway regulation where Congress has not acted, a court is not called upon, as are state legislatures, to determine what, in its judgment, is the most suitable restriction to be applied of those that are possible, or to choose that one which in its opinion is best adapted to all the diverse interests affected. When the action of a legislature is within the scope of its power, fairly debatable questions as to its reasonableness, wisdom and propriety are not for the determination of courts, but for the legislative body, on which rests the duty and responsibility of decision. . This is equally the case when the legislative power is one which may legitimately place an incidental burden on interstate commerce. It is not any the less a legislative power committed to the states because it affects interstate commerce, and courts are not any the more entitled, because interstate commerce is affected, to substitute their own for the legislative judgment.

[10] Since the adoption of one weight or width regulation, rather than another, is a legislative not a judicial choice, its constitutionality is not to be determined by weighing in the judicial scales the merits of the legislative choice and rejecting it if the weight of evidence presented in court appears to favor a different standard. Being a legislative judgment it is presumed to be supported by facts known to the legislature unless facts judicially known or proved preclude that possibility. Hence, in reviewing the present determination we examine the record, not to see whether the findings of the court below are supported by evidence, but to ascertain upon the whole record whether it is possible to say that the legislative choice is without rational basis. Not only does the record fail to exclude that possibility, but it shows affirmatively that there is adequate support for the legislative judgment.

**

[11] The regulatory measures taken by South Carolina are within its legislative power. They do not infringe the Fourteenth Amendment, and the resulting burden on interstate commerce is not forbidden.

[12] Reversed.

MR. JUSTICE CARDOZO and MR. JUSTICE REED took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

JUSTICE POWELL announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which JUSTICE WHITE, JUSTICE BLACKMUN, and JUSTICE STEVENS joined.

[1] The question is whether an Iowa statute that prohibits the use of certain large trucks within the State unconstitutionally burdens interstate commerce.

I

[2] Appellee Consolidated Freightways Corporation of Delaware (Consolidated) is one of the largest common carriers in the country. It offers service in 48 States under a certificate of public convenience and necessity issued by the Interstate Commerce Commission. Among other routes, Consolidated carries commodities through Iowa on Interstate 80, the principal east-west route linking New York, Chicago, and the west coast, and on Interstate 35, a major north-south route.

[3] Consolidated mainly uses two kinds of trucks. One consists of a three-axle tractor pulling a 40-foot two-axle trailer. This unit, commonly called a single, or “semi,” is 55 feet in length overall. Such trucks have long been used on the Nation’s highways. Consolidated also uses a two-axle tractor pulling a single-axle trailer which, in turn, pulls a single-axle dolly and a second single-axle trailer. This combination, known as a double, or twin, is 65 feet long overall. Many trucking companies, including Consolidated, increasingly prefer to use doubles to ship certain kinds of commodities. Doubles have larger capacities, and the trailers can be detached and routed separately if necessary. Consolidated would like to use 65-foot doubles on many of its trips through Iowa.

[4] The State of Iowa, however, by statute restricts the length of vehicles that may use its highways. Unlike all other States in the West and Midwest, App. 605, Iowa generally prohibits the use of 65-foot doubles within its borders. Instead, most truck combinations are restricted to 55 feet in length. Doubles, mobile homes, trucks carrying vehicles such as tractors and other farm equipment, and singles hauling livestock, are permitted to be as long as 60 feet. Notwithstanding these restrictions, Iowa’s statute permits cities abutting the state line by local ordinance to adopt the length limitations of the adjoining State. Iowa Code § 321.457 (7) (1979). Where a city has exercised this option, otherwise oversized trucks are permitted within the city limits and in nearby commercial zones.

**

[5] Because of Iowa’s statutory scheme, Consolidated cannot use its 65-foot doubles to move commodities through the State. Instead, the company must do one of four things: (i) use 55-foot singles; (ii) use 60-foot doubles; (iii) detach the trailers of a 65-foot double and shuttle each through the State separately; or (iv) divert 65-foot doubles around Iowa.

[6] Dissatisfied with these options, Consolidated filed this suit in the District Court averring that Iowa’s statutory scheme unconstitutionally burdens interstate commerce. Iowa defended the law as a reasonable safety measure enacted pursuant to its police power. The State asserted that 65-foot doubles are more dangerous than 55-foot singles and, in any event, that the law promotes safety and reduces road wear within the State by diverting much truck traffic to other States.

[7] The extent of permissible state regulation is not always easy to measure. It may be said with confidence, however, that a State’s power to regulate commerce is never greater than in matters traditionally of local concern. Washington Apple Advertising Comm’n, supra, at 350. For example, regulations that touch upon safety—especially highway safety—are those that “the Court has been most reluctant to invalidate.”

**

[8] But the incantation of a purpose to promote the public health or safety does not insulate a state law from Commerce Clause attack. Regulations designed for that salutary purpose nevertheless may further the purpose so marginally, and interfere with commerce so substantially, as to be invalid under the Commerce Clause.

**

[9] [T]he constitutionality of the state regulation depends on—”a sensitive consideration of the weight and nature of the state regulatory concern in light of the extent of the burden imposed on the course of interstate commerce.” Id., at 441; accord, Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc., 397 U. S. 137, 142 (1970).

[10] Applying these general principles, we conclude that the Iowa truck-length limitations unconstitutionally burden interstate commerce.

[11] The trial focused on a comparison of the performance of the two kinds of trucks in various safety categories. The evidence showed, and the District Court found, that the 65-foot double was at least the equal of the 55-foot single in the ability to brake, turn, and maneuver.

**

[12] Consolidated, meanwhile, demonstrated that Iowa’s law substantially burdens interstate commerce. Trucking companies that wish to continue to use 65-foot doubles must route them around Iowa or detach the trailers of the doubles and ship them through separately. Alternatively, trucking companies must use the smaller 55-foot singles or 60-foot doubles permitted under Iowa law. Each of these options engenders inefficiency and added expense. The record shows that Iowa’s law added about $12.6 million each year to the costs of trucking companies. Consolidated alone incurred about $2 million per year in increased costs.

[13] In addition to increasing the costs of the trucking companies (and, indirectly, of the service to consumers), Iowa’s law may aggravate, rather than ameliorate, the problem of highway accidents. Fifty-five foot singles carry less freight than 65-foot doubles. Either more small trucks must be used to carry the same quantity of goods through Iowa, or the same number of larger trucks must drive longer distances to bypass Iowa. In either case, as the District Court noted, the restriction requires more highway miles to be driven to transport the same quantity of goods. Other things being equal, accidents are proportional to distance traveled. See App. 604, 615. Thus, if 65-foot doubles are as safe as 55-foot singles, Iowa’s law tends to increase the number of accidents, and to shift the incidence of them from Iowa to other States.

[14] Perhaps recognizing the weakness of the evidence supporting its safety argument, and the substantial burden on commerce that its regulations create, Iowa urges the Court simply to “defer” to the safety judgment of the State. It argues that the length of trucks is generally, although perhaps imprecisely, related to safety. The task of drawing a line is one that Iowa contends should be left to its legislature.

[15] The Court normally does accord “special deference” to state highway safety regulations. This traditional deference “derives in part from the assumption that where such regulations do not discriminate on their face against interstate commerce, their burden usually falls on local economic interests as well as other States’ economic interests, thus insuring that a State’s own political processes will serve as a check against unduly burdensome regulations.” Ibid. Less deference to the legislative judgment is due, however, where the local regulation bears disproportionately on out-of-state residents and businesses. Such a disproportionate burden is apparent here. Iowa’s scheme, although generally banning large doubles from the State, nevertheless has several exemptions that secure to Iowans many of the benefits of large trucks while shunting to neighboring States many of the costs associated with their use.

[16] At the time of trial there were two particularly significant exemptions. First, singles hauling livestock or farm vehicles were permitted to be as long as 60 feet. As the Court of Appeals noted, this provision undoubtedly was helpful to local interests. Second, cities abutting other States were permitted to enact local ordinances adopting the larger length limitation of the neighboring State. This exemption offered the benefits of longer trucks to individuals and businesses in important border cities without burdening Iowa’s highways with interstate through traffic.

**

[17] It is thus far from clear that Iowa was motivated primarily by a judgment that 65-foot doubles are less safe than 55-foot singles. Rather, Iowa seems to have hoped to limit the use of its highways by deflecting some through traffic.

**

[18] In sum, the statutory exemptions, their history, and the arguments Iowa has advanced in support of its law in this litigation, all suggest that the deference traditionally accorded a State’s safety judgment is not warranted. The controlling factors thus are the findings of the District Court, accepted by the Court of Appeals, with respect to the relative safety of the types of trucks at issue, and the substantiality of the burden on interstate commerce.

[19] Because Iowa has imposed this burden without any significant countervailing safety interest, its statute violates the Commerce Clause. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.

[20] It is so ordered.

JUSTICE BRENNAN, with whom JUSTICE MARSHALL joins, concurring in the judgment.

**

[1] My Brothers POWELL and REHNQUIST make the mistake of disregarding the intention of Iowa’s lawmakers and assuming that resolution of the case must hinge upon the argument offered by Iowa’s attorneys: that 65-foot doubles are more dangerous than shorter trucks. They then canvass the factual record and findings of the courts below and reach opposite conclusions as to whether the evidence adequately supports that empirical judgment. I repeat: my Brothers POWELL and REHNQUIST have asked and answered the wrong question. For although Iowa’s lawyers in this litigation have defended the truck-length regulation on the basis of the safety advantages of 55-foot singles and 60-foot doubles over 65-foot doubles, Iowa’s actual rationale for maintaining the regulation had nothing to do with these purported differences. Rather, Iowa sought to discourage interstate truck traffic on Iowa’s highways. Thus, the safety advantages and disadvantages of the types and lengths of trucks involved in this case are irrelevant to the decision.

**

[2] The Iowa Legislature has consistently taken the position that size, weight, and speed restrictions on interstate traffic should be set in accordance with uniform national standards. The stated purpose was not to further safety but to achieve uniformity with other States.

**

[3] In 1974, the Iowa Legislature again voted to increase the permissible length of trucks to conform to uniform standards then in effect in most other States. This legislation, House Bill 671, would have increased the maximum length of twin trailer trucks operable in Iowa from 60 to 65 feet. But Governor Ray broke from prior state policy, and vetoed the legislation. . . . In his veto, Governor Ray did not rest his decision on the conclusion that 55-foot singles and 60-foot doubles are any safer than 65-foot doubles, or on any other safety consideration inherent in the type or size of the trucks. Rather, his principal concern was that to allow 65-foot doubles would “basically ope[n] our state to literally thousands and thousands more trucks per year.” App. 628. This increase in interstate truck traffic would, in the Governor’s estimation, greatly increase highway maintenance costs, which are borne by the citizens of the State, id., at 628-629, and increase the number of accidents and fatalities within the State. Id., at 628. The legislative response was not to override the veto, but to accede to the Governor’s action, and in accord with his basic premise, to enact a “border cities exemption.” This permitted cities within border areas to allow 65-foot doubles while otherwise maintaining the 60-foot limit throughout the State to discourage interstate truck traffic.

**

[4] The Governor admitted that he blocked legislative efforts to raise the length of trucks because the change “would benefit only a few Iowa-based companies while providing a great advantage for out-of-state trucking firms and competitors at the expense of our Iowa citizens.”

**

[5] Iowa may not shunt off its fair share of the burden of maintaining interstate truck routes, nor may it create increased hazards on the highways of neighboring States in order to decrease the hazards on Iowa highways. Such an attempt has all the hallmarks of the “simple . . . protectionism” this Court has condemned in the economic area. Philadelphia v. New Jersey, 437 U. S. 617, 624 (1978). Just as a State’s attempt to avoid interstate competition in economic goods may damage the prosperity of the Nation as a whole, so Iowa’s attempt to deflect interstate truck traffic has been found to make the Nation’s highways as a whole more hazardous. That attempt should therefore be subject to “a virtually per se rule of invalidity.”

**

JUSTICE REHNQUIST, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE and JUSTICE STEWART join, dissenting.

[1] The result in this case suggests, to paraphrase Justice Jackson, that the only state truck-length limit “that is valid is one which this Court has not been able to get its hands on.” Although the plurality opinion and the opinion concurring in the judgment strike down Iowa’s law by different routes, I believe the analysis in both opinions oversteps our “limited authority to review state legislation under the commerce clause,” and seriously intrudes upon the fundamental right of the States to pass laws to secure the safety of their citizens. Accordingly, I dissent.

[2] The answering of the relevant question is not appreciably advanced by comparing trucks slightly over the length limit with those at the length limit. It is emphatically not our task to balance any incremental safety benefits from prohibiting 65-foot doubles as opposed to 60-foot doubles against the burden on interstate commerce. Lines drawn for safety purposes will rarely pass muster if the question is whether a slight increment can be permitted without sacrificing safety.

**

[3] My Brother BRENNAN argues that the Court should consider only the purpose the Iowa legislators actually sought to achieve by the length limit, and not the purposes advanced by Iowa’s lawyers in defense of the statute. This argument calls to mind what was said of the Roman Legions: that they may have lost battles, but they never lost a war, since they never let a war end until they had won it. The argument has been consistently rejected by the Court in other contexts, and JUSTICE BRENNAN can cite no authority for the proposition that possible legislative purposes suggested by a State’s lawyers should not be considered in Commerce Clause cases. The problems with a view such as that advanced in the opinion concurring in the judgment are apparent. To name just a few, it assumes that individual legislators are motivated by one discernible “actual” purpose, and ignores the fact that different legislators may vote for a single piece of legislation for widely different reasons. How, for example, would a court adhering to the views expressed in the opinion concurring in the judgment approach a statute, the legislative history of which indicated that 10 votes were based on safety considerations, 10 votes were based on protectionism, and the statute passed by a vote of 40-20? What would the actual purpose of the legislature have been in that case? This Court has wisely “never insisted that a legislative body articulate its reasons for enacting a statute.” Fritz, supra, at 461.

**

JUSTICE STEWART delivered the opinion of the Court.

[1] The appellee is a company engaged in extensive commercial farming operations in Arizona and California. The appellant is the official charged with enforcing the Arizona Fruit and Vegetable Standardization Act. A provision of the Act requires that, with certain exceptions, all cantaloupes grown in Arizona and offered for sale must “be packed in regular compact arrangement in closed standard containers approved by the supervisor. . . .” Invoking his authority under that provision, the appellant issued an order prohibiting the appellee company from transporting uncrated cantaloupes from its Parker, Arizona, ranch to nearby Blythe, California, for packing and processing. The company then brought this action in a federal court to enjoin the order as unconstitutional. A three-judge court was convened. After first granting temporary relief, the court issued a permanent injunction upon the ground that the challenged order constituted an unlawful burden upon interstate commerce. This appeal followed.

[2] The facts are not in dispute, having been stipulated by the parties. The appellee company has for many years been engaged in the business of growing, harvesting, processing, and packing fruits and vegetables at numerous locations in Arizona and California for interstate shipment to markets throughout the Nation. One of the company’s newest operations is at Parker, Arizona, where, pursuant to a 1964 lease with the Secretary of the Interior, the Colorado River Indian Agency, and the Colorado River Indian Tribes, it undertook to develop approximately 6,400 acres of uncultivated, arid land for agricultural use. The company has spent more than $3,000,000 in clearing, leveling, irrigating, and otherwise developing this land. The company began growing cantaloupes on part of the land in 1966, and has harvested a large cantaloupe crop there in each subsequent year. The cantaloupes are considered to be of higher quality than those grown in other areas of the State. Because they are highly perishable, cantaloupes must upon maturity be immediately harvested, processed, packed, and shipped in order to prevent spoilage. The processing and packing operations can be performed only in packing sheds. Because the company had no such facilities at Parker, it transported its 1966 Parker cantaloupe harvest in bulk loads to Blythe, California, 31 miles away, where it operated centralized and efficient packing shed facilities. There the melons were sorted, inspected, packed, and shipped. In 1967 the company again sent its Parker cantaloupe crop to Blythe for sorting, packing, and shipping. In 1968, however, the appellant entered the order here in issue, prohibiting the company from shipping its cantaloupes out of the State unless they were packed in containers in a manner and of a kind approved by the appellant. Because cantaloupes in the quantity involved can be so packed only in packing sheds, and because no such facilities were available to the company at Parker or anywhere else nearby in Arizona, the company faced imminent loss of its anticipated 1968 cantaloupe crop in the gross amount of $700,000.

**

[3] Although the criteria for determining the validity of state statutes affecting interstate commerce have been variously stated, the general rule that emerges can be phrased as follows: Where the statute regulates evenhandedly to effectuate a legitimate local public interest, and its effects on interstate commerce are only incidental, it will be upheld unless the burden imposed on such commerce is clearly excessive in relation to the putative local benefits. If a legitimate local purpose is found, then the question becomes one of degree. And the extent of the burden that will be tolerated will of course depend on the nature of the local interest involved, and on whether it could be promoted as well with a lesser impact on interstate activities.

**

[4] The State has stipulated that its primary purpose is to promote and preserve the reputation of Arizona growers by prohibiting deceptive packaging.

[5] We are not, then, dealing here with “state legislation in the field of safety where the propriety of local regulation has long been recognized,” or with an Act designed to protect consumers in Arizona from contaminated or unfit goods. Its purpose and design are simply to protect and enhance the reputation of growers within the State. These are surely legitimate state interests.

**

[6] But the State’s tenuous interest in having the company’s cantaloupes identified as originating in Arizona cannot constitutionally justify the requirement that the company build and operate an unneeded $200,000 packing plant in the State. The nature of that burden is, constitutionally, more significant than its extent. For the Court has viewed with particular suspicion state statutes requiring business operations to be performed in the home State that could more efficiently be performed elsewhere. Even where the State is pursuing a clearly legitimate local interest, this particular burden on commerce has been declared to be virtually per se illegal.

**

[7] While the order issued under the Arizona statute does not impose such rigidity on an entire industry, it does impose just such a straitjacket on the appellee company with respect to the allocation of its interstate resources. Such an incidental consequence of a regulatory scheme could perhaps be tolerated if a more compelling state interest were involved. But here the State’s interest is minimal at best—certainly less substantial than a State’s interest in securing employment for its people. If the Commerce Clause forbids a State to require work to be done within its jurisdiction to promote local employment, then surely it cannot permit a State to require a person to go into a local packing business solely for the sake of enhancing the reputation of other producers within its borders.

[8] The judgment is affirmed.

Justice KENNEDY delivered the opinion of the Court.

When a consumer purchases goods or services, the consumer's State often imposes a sales tax. This case requires the Court to determine when an out-of-state seller can be required to collect and remit that tax. All concede that taxing the sales in question here is lawful. The question is whether the out-of-state seller can be held responsible for its payment, and this turns on a proper interpretation of the Commerce Clause, U.S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 3.

In two earlier cases the Court held that an out-of-state seller's liability to collect and remit the tax to the consumer's State depended on whether the seller had a physical presence in that State, but that mere shipment of goods into the consumer's State, following an order from a catalog, did not satisfy the physical presence requirement. National Bellas Hess, Inc. v. Department of Revenue of Ill., 386 U.S. 753(1967); Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, 504 U.S. 298 (1992).

The Court granted certiorari here to reconsider the scope and validity of the physical presence rule mandated by those cases.

I

Like most States, South Dakota has a sales tax. It taxes the retail sales of goods and services in the State. S.D. Codified Laws §§ 10-45-2, 10-45-4 (2010 and Supp. 2017). Sellers are generally required to collect and remit this tax to the Department of Revenue. If for some reason the sales tax is not remitted by the seller, then in-state consumers are separately responsible for paying a use tax at the same rate. See §§ 10-46-2, 10-46-4, 10-46-6. Many States employ this kind of complementary sales and use tax regime.

Under this Court's decisions in Bellas Hess and Quill, South Dakota may not require a business to collect its sales tax if the business lacks a physical presence in the State. Without that physical presence, South Dakota instead must rely on its residents to pay the use tax owed on their purchases from out-of-state sellers. "[T]he impracticability of [this] collection from the multitude of individual purchasers is obvious." National Geographic Soc. v. California Bd. of Equalization, 430 U.S. 551, 555 (1977). And consumer compliance rates are notoriously low. [] In South Dakota alone, the Department of Revenue estimates revenue loss at $48 to $58 million annually. Particularly because South Dakota has no state income tax, it must put substantial reliance on its sales and use taxes for the revenue necessary to fund essential services. Those taxes account for over 60 percent of its general fund.

In 2016, South Dakota confronted the serious inequity Quill imposes by enacting S. 106—"An Act to provide for the collection of sales taxes from certain remote sellers, to establish certain Legislative findings, and to declare an emergency." S. 106, 2016 Leg. Assembly, 91st Sess. (S.D. 2016) (S.B. 106). The legislature found that the inability to collect sales tax from remote sellers was "seriously eroding the sales tax base" and "causing revenue losses and imminent harm . . . through the loss of critical funding for state and local services." § 8(1). The legislature also declared an emergency: "Whereas, this Act is necessary for the support of the state government and its existing public institutions, an emergency is hereby declared to exist." § 9. Fearing further erosion of the tax base, the legislature expressed its intention to "apply South Dakota's sales and use tax obligations to the limit of federal and state constitutional doctrines" and noted the urgent need for this Court to reconsider its precedents. §§ 8(11), (8).

To that end, the Act requires out-of-state sellers to collect and remit sales tax "as if the seller had a physical presence in the state." § 1. The Act applies only to sellers that, on an annual basis, deliver more than $100,000 of goods or services into the State or engage in 200 or more separate transactions for the delivery of goods or services into the State. The Act also forecloses the retroactive application of this requirement and provides means for the Act to be appropriately stayed until the constitutionality of the law has been clearly established.

Respondents Wayfair, Inc., Overstock.com, Inc., and Newegg, Inc., are merchants with no employees or real estate in South Dakota. Wayfair, Inc., is a leading online retailer of home goods and furniture and had net revenues of over $4.7 billion last year. Overstock.com, Inc., is one of the top online retailers in the United States, selling a wide variety of products from home goods and furniture to clothing and jewelry; and it had net revenues of over $1.7 billion last year. Newegg, Inc., is a major online retailer of consumer electronics in the United States. Each of these three companies ships its goods directly to purchasers throughout the United States, including South Dakota. Each easily meets the minimum sales or transactions requirement of the Act, but none collects South Dakota sales tax.

Pursuant to the Act's provisions for expeditious judicial review, South Dakota filed a declaratory judgment action against respondents in state court, seeking a declaration that the requirements of the Act are valid and applicable to respondents and an injunction requiring respondents to register for licenses to collect and remit sales tax. Respondents moved for summary judgment, arguing that the Act is unconstitutional. South Dakota conceded that the Act cannot survive under Bellas Hess and Quill but asserted the importance, indeed the necessity, of asking this Court to review those earlier decisions in light of current economic realities. The trial court granted summary judgment to respondents.

The South Dakota Supreme Court affirmed. It stated: "However persuasive the State's arguments on the merits of revisiting the issue, Quill has not been overruled [and] remains the controlling precedent on the issue of Commerce Clause limitations on interstate collection of sales and use taxes." This Court granted certiorari.

II

The Constitution grants Congress the power "[t]o regulate Commerce. . . among the several States." Art. I, § 8, cl. 3. The Commerce Clause "reflect[s] a central concern of the Framers that was an immediate reason for calling the Constitutional Convention: the conviction that in order to succeed, the new Union would have to avoid the tendencies toward economic Balkanization that had plagued relations among the Colonies and later among the States under the Articles of Confederation." Hughes v. Oklahoma, 441 U.S. 322, 325-326 (1979). Although the Commerce Clause is written as an affirmative grant of authority to Congress, this Court has long held that in some instances it imposes limitations on the States absent congressional action. Of course, when Congress exercises its power to regulate commerce by enacting legislation, the legislation controls. Southern Pacific Co. v. Arizona ex rel. Sullivan, 325 U.S. 761, 769,(1945). But this Court has observed that "in general Congress has left it to the courts to formulate the rules" to preserve "the free flow of interstate commerce."

To understand the issue presented in this case, it is instructive first to survey the general development of this Court's Commerce Clause principles and then to review the application of those principles to state taxes.

A

From early in its history, a central function of this Court has been to adjudicate disputes that require interpretation of the Commerce Clause in order to determine its meaning, its reach, and the extent to which it limits state regulations of commerce. Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 6 L.Ed. 23 (1824), began setting the course by defining the meaning of commerce. Chief Justice Marshall explained that commerce included both "the interchange of commodities" and "commercial intercourse." A concurring opinion further stated that Congress had the exclusive power to regulate commerce. Had that latter submission prevailed and States been denied the power of concurrent regulation, history might have seen sweeping federal regulations at an early date that foreclosed the States from experimentation with laws and policies of their own, or, on the other hand, proposals to reexamine Gibbons' broad definition of commerce to accommodate the necessity of allowing States the power to enact laws to implement the political will of their people.

Just five years after Gibbons, however, in another opinion by Chief Justice Marshall, the Court sustained what in substance was a state regulation of interstate commerce. In Willson v. Black-Bird Creek Marsh Co., 2 Pet. 245, 7 L.Ed. 412 (1829), the Court allowed a State to dam and bank a stream that was part of an interstate water system, an action that likely would have been an impermissible intrusion on the national power over commerce had it been the rule that only Congress could regulate in that sphere. Thus, by implication at least, the Court indicated that the power to regulate commerce in some circumstances was held by the States and Congress concurrently. And so both a broad interpretation of interstate commerce and the concurrent regulatory power of the States can be traced to Gibbons and Willson.

Over the next few decades, the Court refined the doctrine to accommodate the necessary balance between state and federal power. In Cooley v. Board of Wardens of Port of Philadelphia, 12 How. 299 (1852), the Court addressed local laws regulating river pilots who operated in interstate waters and guided many ships on interstate or foreign voyages. The Court held that, while Congress surely could regulate on this subject had it chosen to act, the State, too, could regulate. The Court distinguished between those subjects that by their nature "imperatively deman[d] a single uniform rule, operating equally on the commerce of the United States," and those that "deman[d] th[e] diversity, which alone can meet . . . local necessities." Though considerable uncertainties were yet to be overcome, these precedents still laid the groundwork for the analytical framework that now prevails for Commerce Clause cases. This Court's doctrine has developed further with time. Modern precedents rest upon two primary principles that mark the boundaries of a State's authority to regulate interstate commerce.

First, state regulations may not discriminate against interstate commerce; and second, States may not impose undue burdens on interstate commerce. State laws that discriminate against interstate commerce face "a virtually per se rule of invalidity." Granholm v. Heald, 544 U.S. 460, 476 (2005). State laws that "regulat[e] even-handedly to effectuate a legitimate local public interest. . . will be upheld unless the burden imposed on such commerce is clearly excessive in relation to the putative local benefits." Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc., 397 U.S. 137, 142 (1970) [] Although subject to exceptions and variations, see, e.g., Hughes v. Alexandria Scrap Corp., 426 U.S. 794 (1976); Brown-Forman Distillers Corp. v. New York State Liquor Authority, 476 U.S. 573 (1986), these two principles guide the courts in adjudicating cases challenging state laws under the Commerce Clause.

B

These principles also animate the Court's Commerce Clause precedents addressing the validity of state taxes. The Court explained the now-accepted framework for state taxation in Complete Auto Transit, Inc. v. Brady, 430 U.S. 274 (1977). The Court held that a State "may tax exclusively interstate commerce so long as the tax does not create any effect forbidden by the Commerce Clause." Id., at 285. After all, "interstate commerce may be required to pay its fair share of state taxes." D.H. Holmes Co. v. McNamara, 486 U.S. 24, 31 (1988). The Court will sustain a tax so long as it (1) applies to an activity with a substantial nexus with the taxing State, (2) is fairly apportioned, (3) does not discriminate against interstate commerce, and (4) is fairly related to the services the State provides. See Complete Auto, supra, at 279.

Before Complete Auto, the Court had addressed a challenge to an Illinois tax that required out-of-state retailers to collect and remit taxes on sales made to consumers who purchased goods for use within Illinois. Bellas Hess, 386 U.S., at 754-755. The Court held that a mail-order company "whose only connection with customers in the State is by common carrier or the United States mail" lacked the requisite minimum contacts with the State required by both the Due Process Clause and the Commerce Clause. Id., at 758. Unless the retailer maintained a physical presence such as "retail outlets, solicitors, or property within a State," the State lacked the power to require that retailer to collect a local use tax. Ibid. The dissent disagreed: "There should be no doubt that this large-scale, systematic, continuous solicitation and exploitation of the Illinois consumer market is a sufficient `nexus' to require Bellas Hess to collect from Illinois customers and to remit the use tax." Id., at 761-762 (opinion of Fortas, J., joined by Black and Douglas, JJ.).

In 1992, the Court reexamined the physical presence rule in Quill. That case presented a challenge to North Dakota's "attempt to require an out-of-state mail-order house that has neither outlets nor sales representatives in the State to collect and pay a use tax on goods purchased for use within the State." 504 U.S., at 301. Despite the fact that Bellas Hess linked due process and the Commerce Clause together, the Court in Quill overruled the due process holding, but not the Commerce Clause holding; and it thus reaffirmed the physical presence rule. 504 U.S., at 307-308, 317-318.

The Court in Quill recognized that intervening precedents, specifically Complete Auto, "might not dictate the same result were the issue to arise for the first time today." 504 U.S., at 311. But, nevertheless, the Quill majority concluded that the physical presence rule was necessary to prevent undue burdens on interstate commerce. Id., at 313, and n. 6. It grounded the physical presence rule in Complete Auto's requirement that a tax have a "`substantial nexus'" with the activity being taxed. 504 U.S., at 311.

Three Justices based their decision to uphold the physical presence rule on stare decisis alone. Id., at 320 (Scalia, J., joined by KENNEDY and THOMAS, JJ., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). Dissenting in relevant part, Justice White argued that "there is no relationship between the physical-presence/nexus rule the Court retains and Commerce Clause considerations that allegedly justify it." Id., at 327 (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part).

III

The physical presence rule has "been the target of criticism over many years from many quarters." Direct Marketing Assn. v. Brohl, 814 F.3d 1129, 1148, 1150-1151 (C.A.10 2016) (Gorsuch, J., concurring). Quill, it has been said, was "premised on assumptions that are unfounded" and "riddled with internal inconsistencies." Rothfeld, Quill: Confusing the Commerce Clause, 56 Tax Notes 487, 488 (1992). Quill created an inefficient "online sales tax loophole" that gives out-of-state businesses an advantage. A. Laffer & D. Arduin, Pro-Growth Tax Reform and E-Fairness 1, 4 (July 2013). And "while nexus rules are clearly necessary," the Court "should focus on rules that are appropriate to the twenty-first century, not the nineteenth." Hellerstein, Deconstructing the Debate Over State Taxation of Electronic Commerce, 13 Harv. J.L. & Tech. 549, 553 (2000). Each year, the physical presence rule becomes further removed from economic reality and results in significant revenue losses to the States. These critiques underscore that the physical presence rule, both as first formulated and as applied today, is an incorrect interpretation of the Commerce Clause.

A

Quill is flawed on its own terms. First, the physical presence rule is not a necessary interpretation of the requirement that a state tax must be "applied to an activity with a substantial nexus with the taxing State." Complete Auto, 430 U.S., at 279. Second, Quill creates rather than resolves market distortions. And third, Quill imposes the sort of arbitrary, formalistic distinction that the Court's modern Commerce Clause precedents disavow.

1

All agree that South Dakota has the authority to tax these transactions. S.B. 106 applies to sales of "tangible personal property, products transferred electronically, or services for delivery into South Dakota." § 1 (emphasis added). "It has long been settled" that the sale of goods or services "has a sufficient nexus to the State in which the sale is consummated to be treated as a local transaction taxable by that State." Oklahoma Tax Comm'n v. Jefferson Lines, Inc., 514 U.S. 175, 184 (1995); [].

The central dispute is whether South Dakota may require remote sellers to collect and remit the tax without some additional connection to the State. The Court has previously stated that "[t]he imposition on the seller of the duty to insure collection of the tax from the purchaser does not violate the [C]ommerce [C]lause." McGoldrick v. Berwind-White Coal Mining Co., 309 U.S. 33, 50, n. 9 (1940). It is a "`familiar and sanctioned device.'" Scripto, Inc. v. Carson, 362 U.S. 207, 212 (1960). There just must be "a substantial nexus with the taxing State." Complete Auto, supra, at 279.

This nexus requirement is "closely related," Bellas Hess, 386 U.S., at 756, to the due process requirement that there be "some definite link, some minimum connection, between a state and the person, property or transaction it seeks to tax," Miller Brothers Co. v. Maryland, 347 U.S. 340, 344-345 (1954). It is settled law that a business need not have a physical presence in a State to satisfy the demands of due process. Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 471 U.S. 462, 476 (1985). Although physical presence "`frequently will enhance'" a business' connection with a State, "`it is an inescapable fact of modern commercial life that a substantial amount of business is transacted . . . [with no] need for physical presence within a State in which business is conducted.'" Quill, 504 U.S., at 308, 112 S.Ct. 1904. Quill itself recognized that "[t]he requirements of due process are met irrespective of a corporation's lack of physical presence in the taxing State."

When considering whether a State may levy a tax, Due Process and Commerce Clause standards may not be identical or coterminous, but there are significant parallels. The reasons given in Quill for rejecting the physical presence rule for due process purposes apply as well to the question whether physical presence is a requisite for an out-of-state seller's liability to remit sales taxes. Physical presence is not necessary to create a substantial nexus.

The Quill majority expressed concern that without the physical presence rule "a state tax might unduly burden interstate commerce" by subjecting retailers to taxcollection obligations in thousands of different taxing jurisdictions. Id., at 313. But the administrative costs of compliance, especially in the modern economy with its Internet technology, are largely unrelated to whether a company happens to have a physical presence in a State. For example, a business with one salesperson in each State must collect sales taxes in every jurisdiction in which goods are delivered; but a business with 500 salespersons in one central location and a website accessible in every State need not collect sales taxes on otherwise identical nationwide sales. In other words, under Quill, a small company with diverse physical presence might be equally or more burdened by compliance costs than a large remote seller. The physical presence rule is a poor proxy for the compliance costs faced by companies that do business in multiple States. Other aspects of the Court's doctrine can better and more accurately address any potential burdens on interstate commerce, whether or not Quill's physical presence rule is satisfied.

2

The Court has consistently explained that the Commerce Clause was designed to prevent States from engaging in economic discrimination so they would not divide into isolated, separable units. See Philadelphia v. New Jersey, 437 U.S. 617, 623 (1978). But it is "not the purpose of the [C]ommerce [C]lause to relieve those engaged in interstate commerce from their just share of state tax burden." Complete Auto, supra, at 288. And it is certainly not the purpose of the Commerce Clause to permit the Judiciary to create market distortions. "If the Commerce Clause was intended to put businesses on an even playing field, the [physical presence] rule is hardly a way to achieve that goal." Quill, supra, at 329 (opinion of White, J.).

Quill puts both local businesses and many interstate businesses with physical presence at a competitive disadvantage relative to remote sellers. Remote sellers can avoid the regulatory burdens of tax collection and can offer de facto lower prices caused by the widespread failure of consumers to pay the tax on their own. This "guarantees a competitive benefit to certain firms simply because of the organizational form they choose" while the rest of the Court's jurisprudence "is all about preventing discrimination between firms." Direct Marketing, 814 F.3d, at 1150-1151 (Gorsuch, J., concurring). In effect, Quill has come to serve as a judicially created tax shelter for businesses that decide to limit their physical presence and still sell their goods and services to a State's consumers—something that has become easier and more prevalent as technology has advanced.

Worse still, the rule produces an incentive to avoid physical presence in multiple States. Distortions caused by the desire of businesses to avoid tax collection mean that the market may currently lack storefronts, distribution points, and employment centers that otherwise would be efficient or desirable. The Commerce Clause must not prefer interstate commerce only to the point where a merchant physically crosses state borders. Rejecting the physical presence rule is necessary to ensure that artificial competitive advantages are not created by this Court's precedents. This Court should not prevent States from collecting lawful taxes through a physical presence rule that can be satisfied only if there is an employee or a building in the State.

3

The Court's Commerce Clause jurisprudence has "eschewed formalism for a sensitive, case-by-case analysis of purposes and effects." West Lynn Creamery, Inc. v. Healy, 512 U.S. 186, 201 (1994). Quill, in contrast, treats economically identical actors differently, and for arbitrary reasons.

Consider, for example, two businesses that sell furniture online. The first stocks a few items of inventory in a small warehouse in North Sioux City, South Dakota. The second uses a major warehouse just across the border in South Sioux City, Nebraska, and maintains a sophisticated website with a virtual showroom accessible in every State, including South Dakota. By reason of its physical presence, the first business must collect and remit a tax on all of its sales to customers from South Dakota, even those sales that have nothing to do with the warehouse. See National Geographic, 430 U.S., at 561; Scripto, Inc., 362 U.S., at 211-212. But, under Quill, the second, hypothetical seller cannot be subject to the same tax for the sales of the same items made through a pervasive Internet presence. This distinction simply makes no sense. So long as a state law avoids "any effect forbidden by the Commerce Clause," Complete Auto, 430 U.S., at 285 courts should not rely on anachronistic formalisms to invalidate it. The basic principles of the Court's Commerce Clause jurisprudence are grounded in functional, marketplace dynamics; and States can and should consider those realities in enacting and enforcing their tax laws.

B

The Quill Court itself acknowledged that the physical presence rule is "artificial at its edges." 504 U.S., at 315. That was an understatement when Quill was decided; and when the day-to-day functions of marketing and distribution in the modern economy are considered, it is all the more evident that the physical presence rule is artificial in its entirety.

Modern e-commerce does not align analytically with a test that relies on the sort of physical presence defined in Quill. In a footnote, Quill rejected the argument that "title to `a few floppy diskettes' present in a State" was sufficient to constitute a "substantial nexus," id., at 315, n. 8. But it is not clear why a single employee or a single warehouse should create a substantial nexus while "physical" aspects of pervasive modern technology should not. For example, a company with a website accessible in South Dakota may be said to have a physical presence in the State via the customers' computers. A website may leave cookies saved to the customers' hard drives, or customers may download the company's app onto their phones. Or a company may lease data storage that is permanently, or even occasionally, located in South Dakota. Cf. United States v. Microsoft Corp., 584 U.S. ___ (2018) (per curiam). What may have seemed like a "clear," "bright-line tes[t]" when Quill was written now threatens to compound the arbitrary consequences that should have been apparent from the outset. 504 U.S., at 315.

The "dramatic technological and social changes" of our "increasingly interconnected economy" mean that buyers are "closer to most major retailers" than ever before— "regardless of how close or far the nearest storefront." Direct Marketing Assn. v. Brohl, 575 U.S. ___, ___, ___ (2015) (KENNEDY, J., concurring). Between targeted advertising and instant access to most consumers via any internet-enabled device, "a business may be present in a State in a meaningful way without" that presence "being physical in the traditional sense of the term." A virtual showroom can show far more inventory, in far more detail, and with greater opportunities for consumer and seller interaction than might be possible for local stores. Yet the continuous and pervasive virtual presence of retailers today is, under Quill, simply irrelevant. This Court should not maintain a rule that ignores these substantial virtual connections to the State.

C

The physical presence rule as defined and enforced in Bellas Hess and Quill is not just a technical legal problem—it is an extraordinary imposition by the Judiciary on States' authority to collect taxes and perform critical public functions. Forty-one States, two Territories, and the District of Columbia now ask this Court to reject the test formulated in Quill. See Brief for Colorado et al. as Amici Curiae. Quill's physical presence rule intrudes on States' reasonable choices in enacting their tax systems. And that it allows remote sellers to escape an obligation to remit a lawful state tax is unfair and unjust. It is unfair and unjust to those competitors, both local and out of State, who must remit the tax; to the consumers who pay the tax; and to the States that seek fair enforcement of the sales tax, a tax many States for many years have considered an indispensable source for raising revenue.

In essence, respondents ask this Court to retain a rule that allows their customers to escape payment of sales taxes—taxes that are essential to create and secure the active market they supply with goods and services. An example may suffice. Wayfair offers to sell a vast selection of furnishings. Its advertising seeks to create an image of beautiful, peaceful homes, but it also says that "`[o]ne of the best things about buying through Wayfair is that we do not have to charge sales tax.'" [] What Wayfair ignores in its subtle offer to assist in tax evasion is that creating a dream home assumes solvent state and local governments. State taxes fund the police and fire departments that protect the homes containing their customers' furniture and ensure goods are safely delivered; maintain the public roads and municipal services that allow communication with and access to customers; support the "sound local banking institutions to support credit transactions [and] courts to ensure collection of the purchase price," Quill, 504 U.S., at 328 (opinion of White, J.); and help create the "climate of consumer confidence" that facilitates sales. According to respondents, it is unfair to stymie their tax-free solicitation of customers. But there is nothing unfair about requiring companies that avail themselves of the States' benefits to bear an equal share of the burden of tax collection. Fairness dictates quite the opposite result. Helping respondents' customers evade a lawful tax unfairly shifts to those consumers who buy from their competitors with a physical presence that satisfies Quill—even one warehouse or one salesperson—an increased share of the taxes. It is essential to public confidence in the tax system that the Court avoid creating inequitable exceptions. This is also essential to the confidence placed in this Court's Commerce Clause decisions. Yet the physical presence rule undermines that necessary confidence by giving some online retailers an arbitrary advantage over their competitors who collect state sales taxes.

In the name of federalism and free markets, Quill does harm to both. The physical presence rule it defines has limited States' ability to seek long-term prosperity and has prevented market participants from competing on an even playing field.

IV

"Although we approach the reconsideration of our decisions with the utmost caution, stare decisis is not an inexorable command." Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 233 (2009)[]; alterations and internal quotation marks omitted). Here, stare decisis can no longer support the Court's prohibition of a valid exercise of the States' sovereign power.

If it becomes apparent that the Court's Commerce Clause decisions prohibit the States from exercising their lawful sovereign powers in our federal system, the Court should be vigilant in correcting the error. While it can be conceded that Congress has the authority to change the physical presence rule, Congress cannot change the constitutional default rule. It is inconsistent with the Court's proper role to ask Congress to address a false constitutional premise of this Court's own creation. Courts have acted as the front line of review in this limited sphere; and hence it is important that their principles be accurate and logical, whether or not Congress can or will act in response. It is currently the Court, and not Congress, that is limiting the lawful prerogatives of the States.

Further, the real world implementation of Commerce Clause doctrines now makes it manifest that the physical presence rule as defined by Quill must give way to the "far-reaching systemic and structural changes in the economy" and "many other societal dimensions" caused by the Cyber Age. Direct Marketing, 575 U.S., at ___ (KENNEDY, J., concurring). Though Quill was wrong on its own terms when it was decided in 1992, since then the Internet revolution has made its earlier error all the more egregious and harmful.

The Quill Court did not have before it the present realities of the interstate marketplace. In 1992, less than 2 percent of Americans had Internet access. [] Today that number is about 89 percent. When it decided Quill, the Court could not have envisioned a world in which the world's largest retailer would be a remote seller, S. Li, Amazon Overtakes Wal-Mart as Biggest Retailer, L.A. Times, July 24, 2015, https://www.latimes.com/ business/la-fi-amazon-walmart-20150724-story.html (all Internet materials as last visited June 18, 2018).

The Internet's prevalence and power have changed the dynamics of the national economy. In 1992, mail-order sales in the United States totaled $180 billion. 504 U.S., at 329 (opinion of White, J.). Last year, e-commerce retail sales alone were estimated at $453.5 billion. Dept. of Commerce, U.S. Census Bureau News, Quarterly Retail E-Commerce Sales: 4th Quarter 2017 (CB18-21, Feb. 16, 2018). Combined with traditional remote sellers, the total exceeds half a trillion dollars. Since the Department of Commerce first began tracking e-commerce sales, those sales have increased tenfold from 0.8 percent to 8.9 percent of total retail sales in the United States. Compare Dept. of Commerce, U.S. Census Bureau, Retail E-Commerce Sales in Fourth Quarter 2000 (CB01-28, Feb. 16, 2001), https://www. census.gov/mrts/www/data/pdf/00Q4.pdf, with U.S. Census Bureau News, Quarterly Retail E-Commerce Sales: 4th Quarter 2017. And it is likely that this percentage will increase. Last year, e-commerce grew at four times the rate of traditional retail, and it shows no sign of any slower pace.

This expansion has also increased the revenue shortfall faced by States seeking to collect their sales and use taxes. In 1992, it was estimated that the States were losing between $694 million and $3 billion per year in sales tax revenues as a result of the physical presence rule. [] Now estimates range from $8 to $33 billion.[] The South Dakota Legislature has declared an emergency, S.B. 106, § 9, which again demonstrates urgency of overturning the physical presence rule.

The argument, moreover, that the physical presence rule is clear and easy to apply is unsound. Attempts to apply the physical presence rule to online retail sales are proving unworkable. States are already confronting the complexities of defining physical presence in the Cyber Age. For example, Massachusetts proposed a regulation that would have defined physical presence to include making apps available to be downloaded by in-state residents and placing cookies on in-state residents' web browsers. [] Ohio recently adopted a similar standard.[] Some States have enacted so-called "click through" nexus statutes, which define nexus to include out-of-state sellers that contract with in-state residents who refer customers for compensation. [] Others still, like Colorado, have imposed notice and reporting requirements on out-of-state retailers that fall just short of actually collecting and remitting the tax. [] Statutes of this sort are likely to embroil courts in technical and arbitrary disputes about what counts as physical presence.

Reliance interests are a legitimate consideration when the Court weighs adherence to an earlier but flawed precedent. See Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment, LLC, 576 U.S. ___. But even on its own terms, the physical presence rule as defined by Quill is no longer a clear or easily applicable standard, so arguments for reliance based on its clarity are misplaced. And, importantly, stare decisis accommodates only "legitimate reliance interest[s]." United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, 824 (1982). Here, the tax distortion created by Quill exists in large part because consumers regularly fail to comply with lawful use taxes. Some remote retailers go so far as to advertise sales as tax free. [] A business "is in no position to found a constitutional right on the practical opportunities for tax avoidance." Nelson v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 312 U.S. 359, 366 (1941).

Respondents argue that "the physical presence rule has permitted start-ups and small businesses to use the Internet as a means to grow their companies and access a national market, without exposing them to the daunting complexity and business-development obstacles of nationwide sales tax collection." [] These burdens may pose legitimate concerns in some instances, particularly for small businesses that make a small volume of sales to customers in many States. State taxes differ, not only in the rate imposed but also in the categories of goods that are taxed and, sometimes, the relevant date of purchase. Eventually, software that is available at a reasonable cost may make it easier for small businesses to cope with these problems. Indeed, as the physical presence rule no longer controls, those systems may well become available in a short period of time, either from private providers or from state taxing agencies themselves. And in all events, Congress may legislate to address these problems if it deems it necessary and fit to do so.

In this case, however, South Dakota affords small merchants a reasonable degree of protection. The law at issue requires a merchant to collect the tax only if it does a considerable amount of business in the State; the law is not retroactive; and South Dakota is a party to the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement.[]

Finally, other aspects of the Court's Commerce Clause doctrine can protect against any undue burden on interstate commerce, taking into consideration the small businesses, startups, or others who engage in commerce across state lines. For example, the United States argues that tax-collection requirements should be analyzed under the balancing framework of Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc., 397 U.S. 137. Others have argued that retroactive liability risks a double tax burden in violation of the Court's apportionment jurisprudence because it would make both the buyer and the seller legally liable for collecting and remitting the tax on a transaction intended to be taxed only once.[] Complex state tax systems could have the effect of discriminating against interstate commerce. Concerns that complex state tax systems could be a burden on small business are answered in part by noting that, as discussed below, there are various plans already in place to simplify collection; and since in-state businesses pay the taxes as well, the risk of discrimination against out-of-state sellers is avoided. And, if some small businesses with only de minimis contacts seek relief from collection systems thought to be a burden, those entities may still do so under other theories. These issues are not before the Court in the instant case; but their potential to arise in some later case cannot justify retaining this artificial, anachronistic rule that deprives States of vast revenues from major businesses.

For these reasons, the Court concludes that the physical presence rule of Quill is unsound and incorrect. The Court's decisions in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, 504 U.S. 298, 1(1992), and National Bellas Hess, Inc. v. Department of Revenue of Ill., 386 U.S. 753 (1967), should be, and now are, overruled.

V

In the absence of Quill and Bellas Hess, the first prong of the Complete Auto test simply asks whether the tax applies to an activity with a substantial nexus with the taxing State. 430 U.S., at 279. "[S]uch a nexus is established when the taxpayer [or collector] `avails itself of the substantial privilege of carrying on business' in that jurisdiction." Polar Tankers, Inc. v. City of Valdez, 557 U.S. 1, 11 (2009).

Here, the nexus is clearly sufficient based on both the economic and virtual contacts respondents have with the State. The Act applies only to sellers that deliver more than $100,000 of goods or services into South Dakota or engage in 200 or more separate transactions for the delivery of goods and services into the State on an annual basis. S.B. 106, § 1. This quantity of business could not have occurred unless the seller availed itself of the substantial privilege of carrying on business in South Dakota. And respondents are large, national companies that undoubtedly maintain an extensive virtual presence. Thus, the substantial nexus requirement of Complete Auto is satisfied in this case.

The question remains whether some other principle in the Court's Commerce Clause doctrine might invalidate the Act. Because the Quill physical presence rule was an obvious barrier to the Act's validity, these issues have not yet been litigated or briefed, and so the Court need not resolve them here. That said, South Dakota's tax system includes several features that appear designed to prevent discrimination against or undue burdens upon interstate commerce. First, the Act applies a safe harbor to those who transact only limited business in South Dakota. Second, the Act ensures that no obligation to remit the sales tax may be applied retroactively. S.B. 106, § 5. Third, South Dakota is one of more than 20 States that have adopted the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement.

This system standardizes taxes to reduce administrative and compliance costs: It requires a single, state level tax administration, uniform definitions of products and services, simplified tax rate structures, and other uniform rules. It also provides sellers access to sales tax administration software paid for by the State. Sellers who choose to use such software are immune from audit liability. Any remaining claims regarding the application of the Commerce Clause in the absence of Quill and Bellas Hess may be addressed in the first instance on remand.

The judgment of the Supreme Court of South Dakota is vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

Justice THOMAS, concurring.
Justice Byron White joined the majority opinion in National Bellas Hess, Inc. v. Department of Revenue of Ill., 386 U.S. 753 (1967). Twenty-five years later, we had the opportunity to overrule Bellas Hess in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, 504 U.S. 298 (1992). Only Justice White voted to do so. See id., at 322 (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part). I should have joined his opinion. Today, I am slightly further removed from Quill than Justice White was from Bellas Hess. And like Justice White, a quarter century of experience has convinced me that Bellas Hess and Quill "can no longer be rationally justified." 504 U.S., at 333. The same is true for this Court's entire negative Commerce Clause jurisprudence. See Comptroller of Treasury of Md. v. Wynne, 575 U.S. ___, ___ (2015) (THOMAS, J., dissenting). Although I adhered to that jurisprudence in Quill, it is never too late to "surrende[r] former views to a better considered position." McGrath v. Kristensen, 340 U.S. 162, 178 (1950) (Jackson, J., concurring). I therefore join the Court's opinion.

Justice GORSUCH, concurring.
Our dormant commerce cases usually prevent States from discriminating between in-state and out-of-state firms. National Bellas Hess, Inc. v. Department of Revenue of Ill., 386 U.S. 753 (1967), and Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, 504 U.S. 298 (1992), do just the opposite. For years they have enforced a judicially created tax break for out-of-state Internet and mail-order firms at the expense of in-state brick-and-mortar rivals. [] As Justice White recognized 26 years ago, judges have no authority to construct a discriminatory "tax shelter" like this. [] The Court is right to correct the mistake and I am pleased to join its opinion.

My agreement with the Court's discussion of the history of our dormant commerce clause jurisprudence, however, should not be mistaken for agreement with all aspects of the doctrine. The Commerce Clause is found in Article I and authorizes Congress to regulate interstate commerce. Meanwhile our dormant commerce cases suggest Article III courts may invalidate state laws that offend no congressional statute. Whether and how much of this can be squared with the text of the Commerce Clause, justified by stare decisis, or defended as misbranded products of federalism or antidiscrimination imperatives flowing from Article IV's Privileges and Immunities Clause are questions for another day. See Energy & Environment Legal Inst. v. Epel, 793 F.3d 1169, 1171 (C.A.10 2015); Comptroller of Treasury of Md. v. Wynne, 575 U.S. ___, ___ - ___, 135 S.Ct. 1787, 1808-1809 (2015) (Scalia, J., dissenting); Camps Newfound/Owatonna, Inc. v. Town of Harrison, 520 U.S. 564, 610-620 (1997) (THOMAS, J., dissenting). Today we put Bellas Hess and Quill to rest and rightly end the paradox of condemning interstate discrimination in the national economy while promoting it ourselves.

Chief Justice ROBERTS, with whom Justice BREYER, Justice SOTOMAYOR, and Justice KAGAN join, dissenting.

In National Bellas Hess, Inc. v. Department of Revenue of Ill., 386 U.S. 753 (1967), this Court held that, under the dormant Commerce Clause, a State could not require retailers without a physical presence in that State to collect taxes on the sale of goods to its residents. A quarter century later, in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, 504 U.S. 298 (1992), this Court was invited to overrule Bellas Hess but declined to do so. Another quarter century has passed, and another State now asks us to abandon the physical-presence rule. I would decline that invitation as well.

I agree that Bellas Hess was wrongly decided, for many of the reasons given by the Court. The Court argues in favor of overturning that decision because the "Internet's prevalence and power have changed the dynamics of the national economy." [] But that is the very reason I oppose discarding the physical-presence rule. E-commerce has grown into a significant and vibrant part of our national economy against the backdrop of established rules, including the physical-presence rule. Any alteration to those rules with the potential to disrupt the development of such a critical segment of the economy should be undertaken by Congress. The Court should not act on this important question of current economic policy, solely to expiate a mistake it made over 50 years ago.

I

This Court "does not overturn its precedents lightly." Michigan v. Bay Mills Indian Community, 572 U.S. ___, ___ (2014). Departing from the doctrine of stare decisis is an "exceptional action" demanding "special justification." Arizona v. Rumsey, 467 U.S. 203, 212 (1984). The bar is even higher in fields in which Congress "exercises primary authority" and can, if it wishes, override this Court's decisions with contrary legislation. Bay Mills, 572 U.S., at ___, (tribal sovereign immunity); see, e.g., Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment, LLC, 576 U.S. ___, ___, (2015) (statutory interpretation); Halliburton Co. v. Erica P. John Fund, Inc., 573 U.S. ___, ___ (2014) (judicially created doctrine implementing a judicially created cause of action). In such cases, we have said that "the burden borne by the party advocating the abandonment of an established precedent" is "greater" than usual. Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U.S. 164, 172 (1989). That is so "even where the error is a matter of serious concern, provided correction can be had by legislation." Square D Co. v. Niagara Frontier Tariff Bureau, Inc., 476 U.S. 409, 424 (1986) (quoting Burnet v. Coronado Oil & Gas Co., 285 U.S. 393, 406, 52 S.Ct. 443, 76 L.Ed. 815 (1932) (Brandeis, J., dissenting)).

We have applied this heightened form of stare decisis in the dormant Commerce Clause context. Under our dormant Commerce Clause precedents, when Congress has not yet legislated on a matter of interstate commerce, it is the province of "the courts to formulate the rules." Southern Pacific Co. v. Arizona ex rel. Sullivan, 325 U.S. 761, 770 (1945). But because Congress "has plenary power to regulate commerce among the States," Quill, 504 U.S., at 305, it may at any time replace such judicial rules with legislation of its own, see Prudential Ins. Co. v. Benjamin, 328 U.S. 408, 424-425 (1946).

In Quill, this Court emphasized that the decision to hew to the physical-presence rule on stare decisis grounds was "made easier by the fact that the underlying issue is not only one that Congress may be better qualified to resolve, but also one that Congress has the ultimate power to resolve." 504 U.S., at 318. Even assuming we had gone astray in Bellas Hess, the "very fact" of Congress's superior authority in this realm "g[a]ve us pause and counsel[ed] withholding our hand." Quill, 504 U.S., at 318. We postulated that "the better part of both wisdom and valor [may be] to respect the judgment of the other branches of the Government." Id., at 319 (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (recognizing that stare decisis has "special force" in the dormant Commerce Clause context due to Congress's "final say over regulation of interstate commerce"). The Court thus left it to Congress "to decide whether, when, and to what extent the States may burden interstate mail-order concerns with a duty to collect use taxes." Id., at 318 (majority opinion).

II

This is neither the first, nor the second, but the third time this Court has been asked whether a State may obligate sellers with no physical presence within its borders to collect tax on sales to residents. Whatever salience the adage "third time's a charm" has in daily life, it is a poor guide to Supreme Court decisionmaking. If stare decisis applied with special force in Quill, it should be an even greater impediment to overruling precedent now, particularly since this Court in Quill "tossed [the ball] into Congress's court, for acceptance or not as that branch elects." Kimble, 576 U.S., at ___; see Quill, 504 U.S., at 318 ("Congress is now free to decide" the circumstances in which "the States may burden interstate. . . concerns with a duty to collect use taxes").

Congress has in fact been considering whether to alter the rule established in Bellas Hess for some time. [] Three bills addressing the issue are currently pending. []  Nothing in today's decision precludes Congress from continuing to seek a legislative solution. But by suddenly changing the ground rules, the Court may have waylaid Congress's consideration of the issue. Armed with today's decision, state officials can be expected to redirect their attention from working with Congress on a national solution, to securing new tax revenue from remote retailers. []

The Court proceeds with an inexplicable sense of urgency. It asserts that the passage of time is only increasing the need to take the extraordinary step of overruling Bellas Hess and Quill: "Each year, the physical presence rule becomes further removed from economic reality and results in significant revenue losses to the States."[] The factual predicates for that assertion include a Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimate that, under the physical-presence rule, States lose billions of dollars annually in sales tax revenue. [] But evidence in the same GAO report indicates that the pendulum is swinging in the opposite direction, and has been for some time. States and local governments are already able to collect approximately 80 percent of the tax revenue that would be available if there were no physical-presence rule. [] Among the top 100 Internet retailers that rate is between 87 and 96 percent. [] Some companies, including the online behemoth Amazon,[*] now voluntarily collect and remit sales tax in every State that assesses one—even those in which they have no physical presence.[] To the extent the physical-presence rule is harming States, the harm is apparently receding with time.

The Court rests its decision to overrule Bellas Hess on the "present realities of the interstate marketplace." [] As the Court puts it, allowing remote sellers to escape remitting a lawful tax is "unfair and unjust." [] "[U]nfair and unjust to . . . competitors. . . who must remit the tax; to the consumers who pay the tax; and to the States that seek fair enforcement of the sales tax." [] But "the present realities of the interstate marketplace" include the possibility that the marketplace itself could be affected by abandoning the physical-presence rule. The Court's focus on unfairness and injustice does not appear to embrace consideration of that current public policy concern.

The Court, for example, breezily disregards the costs that its decision will impose on retailers. Correctly calculating and remitting sales taxes on all e-commerce sales will likely prove baffling for many retailers. Over 10,000 jurisdictions levy sales taxes, each with "different tax rates, different rules governing tax-exempt goods and services, different product category definitions, and different standards for determining whether an out-of-state seller has a substantial presence" in the jurisdiction. Sales Taxes Report 3. A few examples: New Jersey knitters pay sales tax on yarn purchased for art projects, but not on yarn earmarked for sweaters. [] Texas taxes sales of plain deodorant at 6.25 percent but imposes no tax on deodorant with antiperspirant.[] Illinois categorizes Twix and Snickers bars—chocolate-and-caramel confections usually displayed side-by-side in the candy aisle—as food and candy, respectively (Twix have flour; Snickers don't), and taxes them differently. [].

The burden will fall disproportionately on small businesses. One vitalizing effect of the Internet has been connecting small, even "micro" businesses to potential buyers across the Nation. People starting a business selling their embroidered pillowcases or carved decoys can offer their wares throughout the country—but probably not if they have to figure out the tax due on every sale.[] And the software said to facilitate compliance is still in its infancy, and its capabilities and expense are subject to debate.[] The Court's decision today will surely have the effect of dampening opportunities for commerce in a broad range of new markets.

A good reason to leave these matters to Congress is that legislators may more directly consider the competing interests at stake. Unlike this Court, Congress has the flexibility to address these questions in a wide variety of ways. As we have said in other dormant Commerce Clause cases, Congress "has the capacity to investigate and analyze facts beyond anything the Judiciary could match." General Motors Corp. v. Tracy, 519 U.S. 278, 309 (1997)[].

Here, after investigation, Congress could reasonably decide that current trends might sufficiently expand tax revenues, obviating the need for an abrupt policy shift with potentially adverse consequences for e-commerce. Or Congress might decide that the benefits of allowing States to secure additional tax revenue outweigh any foreseeable harm to e-commerce. Or Congress might elect to accommodate these competing interests, by, for example, allowing States to tax Internet sales by remote retailers only if revenue from such sales exceeds some set amount per year. [] In any event, Congress can focus directly on current policy concerns rather than past legal mistakes. Congress can also provide a nuanced answer to the troubling question whether any change will have retroactive effect.

An erroneous decision from this Court may well have been an unintended factor contributing to the growth of e-commerce. [] The Court is of course correct that the Nation's economy has changed dramatically since the time that Bellas Hess and Quill roamed the earth. I fear the Court today is compounding its past error by trying to fix it in a totally different era. The Constitution gives Congress the power "[t]o regulate Commerce . . . among the several States." Art. I, § 8. I would let Congress decide whether to depart from the physical-presence rule that has governed this area for half a century.

I respectfully dissent.

JUSTICE BRENNAN delivered the opinion of the Court.

[1] Section 685 of the California Insurance Code imposes a retaliatory tax on out-of-state insurers doing business in California, when the insurer’s State of incorporation imposes higher taxes on California insurers doing business in that State than California would otherwise impose on that State’s insurers doing business in California.

[2] [The issue in this case is whether the retaliatory tax violates negative implications of the Commerce Clause].

**

[3] In a long line of cases stretching back to the early days of the Republic . . . this Court has recognized that the Commerce Clause contains an implied limitation on the power of the States to interfere with or impose burdens on interstate commerce. Even in the absence of congressional action, the courts may decide whether state regulations challenged under the Commerce Clause impermissibly burden interstate commerce.

[4] Our decisions do not, however, limit the authority of Congress to regulate commerce among the several States as it sees fit. In the exercise of this plenary authority, Congress may “confe[r] upon the States an ability to restrict the flow of interstate commerce that they would not otherwise enjoy.” If Congress ordains that the States may freely regulate an aspect of interstate commerce, any action taken by a State within the scope of the congressional authorization is rendered invulnerable to Commerce Clause challenge.

[5] Congress removed all Commerce Clause limitations on the authority of the States to regulate and tax the business of insurance when it passed the McCarran-Ferguson Act, as this Court acknowledged in State Board of Insurance v. Todd Shipyards Corp., 370 U. S. 451, 452 (1962). Nevertheless, Western & Southern, joined by the Solicitor General as amicus curiae, argues that the McCarran-Ferguson Act does not permit “anti-competitive state taxation that discriminates against out-of-state insurers.” We find no such limitation in the language or history of the Act.

[6] Section 1 of the Act, contains a declaration of policy:

[7] “Congress declares that the continued regulation and taxation by the several States of the business of insurance is in the public interest, and that silence on the part of the Congress shall not be construed to impose any barrier to the regulation or taxation of such business by the several States.”

[8] Section 2 (a) declares: “The business of insurance . . . shall be subject to the laws of the several States which relate to the regulation or taxation of such business.” The unequivocal language of the Act suggests no exceptions.

**

[9] We must therefore reject Western & Southern’s Commerce Clause challenge to the California retaliatory tax: the McCarran-Ferguson Act removes entirely any Commerce Clause restriction upon California’s power to tax the insurance business.

JUSTICE WHITE announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I and II, and an opinion with respect to Parts III and IV, in which JUSTICE BRENNAN, JUSTICE BLACKMUN, and JUSTICE STEVENS joined.

[1] We granted certiorari in this case to review a decision of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that held that Alaska’s requirement that timber taken from state lands be processed within the State prior to export was “implicitly authorized” by Congress and therefore does not violate the Commerce Clause. 464 U. S. 890 (1983). We hold that it was not authorized and reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

I

[2] In September 1980, the Alaska Department of Natural Resources published a notice that it would sell approximately 49 million board-feet of timber in the area of Icy Cape, Alaska, on October 23, 1980. The notice of sale, the prospectus, and the proposed contract for the sale all provided, pursuant to 11 Alaska Admin. Code § 76.130 (1974), that “[p]rimary manufacture within the State of Alaska will be required as a special provision of the contract.” App. 35a. Under the primary-manufacture requirement, the successful bidder must partially process the timber prior to shipping it outside of the State. The requirement is imposed by contract and does not limit the export of unprocessed timber not owned by the State. The stated purpose of the requirement is to “protect existing industries, provide for the establishment of new industries, derive revenue from all timber resources, and manage the State’s forests on a sustained yield basis.” Governor’s Policy Statement, App. 28a. When it imposes the requirement, the State charges a significantly lower price for the timber than it otherwise would.

[3] The major method of complying with the primary-manufacture requirement is to convert the logs into cants, which are logs slabbed on at least one side. In order to satisfy the Alaska requirement, cants must be either sawed to a maximum thickness of 12 inches or squared on four sides along their entire length.

[4] Petitioner, South-Central Timber Development, Inc., is an Alaska corporation engaged in the business of purchasing standing timber, logging the timber, and shipping the logs into foreign commerce, almost exclusively to Japan. It does not operate a mill in Alaska and customarily sells unprocessed logs. When it learned that the primary-manufacture requirement was to be imposed on the Icy Cape sale, it brought an action in Federal District Court seeking an injunction, arguing that the requirement violated the negative implications of the Commerce Clause.

**

III

[5] We now turn to the issues left unresolved by the Court of Appeals. The first of these issues is whether Alaska’s restrictions on export of unprocessed timber from state-owned lands are exempt from Commerce Clause scrutiny under the “market-participant doctrine.”

[6] Our cases make clear that if a State is acting as a market participant, rather than as a market regulator, the dormant Commerce Clause places no limitation on its activities. See White v. Massachusetts Council of Construction Employers, Inc., 460 U. S., at 206-208; Reeves, Inc. v. Stake (1980); Hughes v. Alexandria Scrap Corp., (1976). The precise contours of the market-participant doctrine have yet to be established, however, the doctrine having been applied in only three cases of this Court to date.

[7] The first of the cases, Hughes v. Alexandria Scrap Corp., supra, involved a Maryland program designed to reduce the number of junked automobiles in the State. A “bounty” was established on Maryland-licensed junk cars, and the State imposed more stringent documentation requirements on out-of-state scrap processors than on in-state ones. The Court rejected a Commerce Clause attack on the program, although it noted that under traditional Commerce Clause analysis the program might well be invalid because it had the effect of reducing the flow of goods in interstate commerce. Id., at 805. The Court concluded that Maryland’s action was not “the kind of action with which the Commerce Clause is concerned,” ibid., because “[n]othing in the purposes animating the Commerce Clause prohibits a State, in the absence of congressional action, from participating in the market and exercising the right to favor its own citizens over others.”

[8] In Reeves, Inc. v. Stake, supra, the Court upheld a South Dakota policy of restricting the sale of cement from a state-owned plant to state residents, declaring that “[t]he basic distinction drawn in Alexandria Scrap between States as market participants and States as market regulators makes good sense and sound law.” Id., at 436. The Court relied upon ” `the long recognized right of trader or manufacturer, engaged in an entirely private business, freely to exercise his own independent discretion as to parties with whom he will deal.’ ” Id., at 438-439 (quoting United States v. Colgate & Co.(1919)). In essence, the Court recognized the principle that the Commerce Clause places no limitations on a State’s refusal to deal with particular parties when it is participating in the interstate market in goods.

[9] The most recent of this Court’s cases developing the market-participant doctrine is White v. Massachusetts Council of Construction Employers, Inc., supra, in which the Court sustained against a Commerce Clause challenge an executive order of the Mayor of Boston that required all construction projects funded in whole or in part by city funds or city-administered funds to be performed by a work force of at least 50% city residents. The Court rejected the argument that the city was not entitled to the protection of the doctrine because the order had the effect of regulating employment contracts between public contractors and their employees. Id., at 211, n. 7. Recognizing that “there are some limits on a state or local government’s ability to impose restrictions that reach beyond the immediate parties with which the government transacts business,” the Court found it unnecessary to define those limits because “[e]veryone affected by the order [was], in a substantial if informal sense, `working for the city.’ ” Ibid. The fact that the employees were “working for the city” was “crucial” to the market-participant analysis in White. United Building and Construction Trades Council v. Mayor of Camden (1984).

[10] The State of Alaska contends that its primary-manufacture requirement fits squarely within the market-participant doctrine, arguing that “Alaska’s entry into the market may be viewed as precisely the same type of subsidy to local interests that the Court found unobjectionable in Alexandria Scrap.” Brief for Respondents 24. However, when Maryland became involved in the scrap market it was as a purchaser of scrap; Alaska, on the other hand, participates in the timber market, but imposes conditions downstream in the timber-processing market. Alaska is not merely subsidizing local timber processing in an amount “roughly equal to the difference between the price the timber would fetch in the absence of such a requirement and the amount the state actually receives.” Ibid. If the State directly subsidized the timber-processing industry by such an amount, the purchaser would retain the option of taking advantage of the subsidy by processing timber in the State or forgoing the benefits of the subsidy and exporting unprocessed timber. Under the Alaska requirement, however, the choice is made for him: if he buys timber from the State he is not free to take the timber out of state prior to processing.

[11] The State also would have us find Reeves controlling. It states that “Reeves made it clear that the Commerce Clause imposes no limitation on Alaska’s power to choose the terms on which it will sell its timber.” Brief for Respondents 25. Such an unrestrained reading of Reeves is unwarranted. Although the Court in Reeves did strongly endorse the right of a State to deal with whomever it chooses when it participates in the market, it did not — and did not purport to — sanction the imposition of any terms that the State might desire. For example, the Court expressly noted in Reeves that “Commerce Clause scrutiny may well be more rigorous when a restraint on foreign commerce is alleged,” 447 U. S., at 438, n. 9; that a natural resource “like coal, timber, wild game, or minerals,” was not involved, but instead the cement was “the end product of a complex process whereby a costly physical plant and human labor act on raw materials,” id., at 443-444; and that South Dakota did not bar resale of South Dakota cement to out-of-state purchasers, id., at 444, n. 17. In this case, all three of the elements that were not present in Reeves — foreign commerce, a natural resource, and restrictions on resale — are present.

[12] Finally, Alaska argues that since the Court in White upheld a requirement that reached beyond “the boundary of formal privity of contract,” 460 U. S., at 211, n. 7, then, a fortiori, the primary-manufacture requirement is permissible, because the State is not regulating contracts for resale of timber or regulating the buying and selling of timber, but is instead “a seller of timber, pure and simple.” Brief for Respondents 28. Yet it is clear that the State is more than merely a seller of timber. In the commercial context, the seller usually has no say over, and no interest in, how the product is to be used after sale; in this case, however, payment for the timber does not end the obligations of the purchaser, for, despite the fact that the purchaser has taken delivery of the timber and has paid for it, he cannot do with it as he pleases. Instead, he is obligated to deal with a stranger to the contract after completion of the sale.

[13] That privity of contract is not always the outer boundary of permissible state activity does not necessarily mean that the Commerce Clause has no application within the boundary of formal privity. The market-participant doctrine permits a State to influence “a discrete, identifiable class of economic activity in which [it] is a major participant.” White v. Massachusetts Council of Construction Workers, Inc., 460 U. S., at 211, n. 7. Contrary to the State’s contention, the doctrine is not carte blanche to impose any conditions that the State has the economic power to dictate, and does not validate any requirement merely because the State imposes it upon someone with whom it is in contractual privity.

[14] The limit of the market-participant doctrine must be that it allows a State to impose burdens on commerce within the market in which it is a participant, but allows it to go no further. The State may not impose conditions, whether by statute, regulation, or contract, that have a substantial regulatory effect outside of that particular market. Unless the “market” is relatively narrowly defined, the doctrine has the potential of swallowing up the rule that States may not impose substantial burdens on interstate commerce even if they act with the permissible state purpose of fostering local industry.

**

[15] At the heart of the dispute in this case is disagreement over the definition of the market. Alaska contends that it is participating in the processed timber market, although it acknowledges that it participates in no way in the actual processing. Id., at 34. South-Central argues, on the other hand, that although the State may be a participant in the timber market, it is using its leverage in that market to exert a regulatory effect in the processing market, in which it is not a participant. We agree with the latter position.

**

[16] [D]ownstream restrictions have a greater regulatory effect than do limitations on the immediate transaction. Instead of merely choosing its own trading partners, the State is attempting to govern the private, separate economic relationships of its trading partners; that is, it restricts the post-purchase activity of the purchaser, rather than merely the purchasing activity. In contrast to the situation in White, this restriction on private economic activity takes place after the completion of the parties’ direct commercial obligations, rather than during the course of an ongoing commercial relationship in which the city retained a continuing proprietary interest in the subject of the contract. In sum, the State may not avail itself of the market-participant doctrine to immunize its downstream regulation of the timber-processing market in which it is not a participant.

IV

[17] Finally, the State argues that even if we find that Congress did not authorize the processing restriction, and even if we conclude that its actions do not qualify for the market-participant exception, the restriction does not substantially burden interstate or foreign commerce under ordinary Commerce Clause principles. We need not labor long over that contention.

[18] Viewed as a naked restraint on export of unprocessed logs, there is little question that the processing requirement cannot survive scrutiny under the precedents of the Court.

**

[19] Because of the protectionist nature of Alaska’s local-processing requirement and the burden on commerce resulting therefrom, we conclude that it falls within the rule of virtual per se invalidity of laws that “bloc[k] the flow of interstate commerce at a State’s borders.” City of Philadelphia v. New Jersey (1978).

**

JUSTICE POWELL, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE joins, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.

[1] I join Parts I and II of JUSTICE WHITE’s opinion. I would remand the case to the Court of Appeals to allow that court to consider whether Alaska was acting as a “market participant” and whether Alaska’s primary-manufacture requirement substantially burdened interstate commerce.

JUSTICE REHNQUIST, with whom JUSTICE O’CONNOR joins, dissenting.

[1] In my view, the line of distinction drawn in the plurality opinion between the State as market participant and the State as market regulator is both artificial and unconvincing. The plurality draws this line “simply as a matter of intuition,” ante, at 98, but then seeks to bolster its intuition through a series of remarks more appropriate to antitrust law than to the Commerce Clause. For example, the plurality complains that the State is using its “leverage” in the timber market to distort consumer choice in the timber-processing market, ibid., a classic example of a tying arrangement. See, e. g., United States Steel Corp. v. Fortner Enterprises, Inc. (1977). And the plurality cites the common-law doctrine of restraints on alienation and the antitrust limits on vertical restraints in dismissing the State’s claim that it could accomplish exactly the same result in other ways. Ante, at 98-99.

**

[2] The contractual term at issue here no more transforms Alaska’s sale of timber into “regulation” of the processing industry than the resident-hiring preference imposed by the city of Boston in White v. Massachusetts Council of Construction Employers, Inc. (1983), constituted regulation of the construction industry. Alaska is merely paying the buyer of the timber indirectly, by means of a reduced price, to hire Alaska residents to process the timber. Under existing precedent, the State could accomplish that same result in any number of ways. For example, the State could choose to sell its timber only to those companies that maintain active primary-processing plants in Alaska. Reeves, Inc. v. Stake, (1980). Or the State could directly subsidize the primary-processing industry within the State. Hughes v. Alexandria Scrap Corp. (1976). The State could even pay to have the logs processed and then enter the market only to sell processed logs. See ante, at 99. It seems to me unduly formalistic to conclude that the one path chosen by the State as best suited to promote its concerns is the path forbidden it by the Commerce Clause.

[3] For these reasons, I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

Chief Justice ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the Court, except as to Part II-D.

[1] “Flow control” ordinances require trash haulers to deliver solid waste to a particular waste processing facility. In C & A Carbone, Inc. v. Clarkstown, 511 U.S. 383 (1994), this Court struck down under the Commerce Clause a flow control ordinance that forced haulers to deliver waste to a particular private processing facility. In this case, we face flow control ordinances quite similar to the one invalidated in Carbone. The only salient difference is that the laws at issue here require haulers to bring waste to facilities owned and operated by a state-created public benefit corporation. We find this difference constitutionally significant. Disposing of trash has been a traditional government activity for years, and laws that favor the government in such areas—but treat every private business, whether in-state or out-of-state, exactly the same—do not discriminate against interstate commerce for purposes of the Commerce Clause. Applying the Commerce Clause test reserved for regulations that do not discriminate against interstate commerce, we uphold these ordinances because any incidental burden they may have on interstate commerce does not outweigh the benefits they confer on the citizens of Oneida and Herkimer Counties.

I

**

[2] By the 1980’s, the [New York, Oneida and Herkimer] Counties confronted what they could credibly call a solid waste “`crisis.'” Many local landfills were operating without permits and in violation of state regulations. Sixteen were ordered to close and remediate the surrounding environment, costing the public tens of millions of dollars. These environmental problems culminated in a federal clean-up action against a landfill in Oneida County.

**

[3] The “crisis” extended beyond health and safety concerns. The Counties had an uneasy relationship with local waste management companies, enduring price fixing, pervasive overcharging, and the influence of organized crime. DraQmatic price hikes were not uncommon: In 1986, for example, a county contractor doubled its waste disposal rate on six weeks’ notice.

[4] Responding to these problems, the Counties requested and New York’s Legislature and Governor created the Oneida-Herkimer Solid Waste Management Authority (Authority), a public benefit corporation.

**

[5] In 1989, the Authority and the Counties entered into a Solid Waste Management Agreement, under which the Authority agreed to manage all solid waste within the Counties. Private haulers would remain free to pick up citizens’ trash from the curb, but the Authority would take over the job of processing the trash, sorting it, and sending it off for disposal. To fulfill its part of the bargain, the Authority agreed to purchase and develop facilities for the processing and disposal of solid waste and recyclables generated in the Counties.

[6] The Authority collected “tipping fees” to cover its operating and maintenance costs for these facilities. The tipping fees significantly exceeded those charged for waste removal on the open market, but they allowed the Authority to do more than the average private waste disposer. In addition to landfill transportation and solid waste disposal, the fees enabled the Authority to provide recycling of 33 kinds of materials, as well as composting, household hazardous waste disposal, and a number of other services. If the Authority’s operating costs and debt service were not recouped through tipping fees and other charges, the agreement provided that the Counties would make up the difference.

[7] As described, the agreement had a flaw: Citizens might opt to have their waste hauled to facilities with lower tipping fees. To avoid being stuck with the bill for facilities that citizens voted for but then chose not to use, the Counties enacted “flow control” ordinances requiring that all solid waste generated within the Counties be delivered to the Authority’s processing sites. Private haulers must obtain a permit from the Authority to collect waste in the Counties. Penalties for noncompliance with the ordinances include permit revocation, fines, and imprisonment.

[8] Petitioners are United Haulers Association, Inc., a trade association made up of solid waste management companies, and six haulers that operated in Oneida and Herkimer Counties when this action was filed. In 1995, they sued the Counties and the Authority under Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the flow control laws violate the Commerce Clause by discriminating against interstate commerce. They submitted evidence that without the flow control laws and the associated $86-per-ton tipping fees, they could dispose of solid waste at out-of-state facilities for between $37 and $55 per ton, including transportation.

**

II

A

[9] The Commerce Clause provides that “Congress shall have Power . . . [t]o regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States.” U.S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 3. Although the Constitution does not in terms limit the power of States to regulate commerce, we have long interpreted the Commerce Clause as an implicit restraint on state authority, even in the absence of a conflicting federal statute.

[10] To determine whether a law violates this so-called “dormant” aspect of the Commerce Clause, we first ask whether it discriminates on its face against interstate commerce. In this context, “`discrimination’ simply means differential treatment of in-state and out-of-state economic interests that benefits the former and burdens the latter.” Discriminatory laws motivated by “simple economic protectionism” are subject to a “virtually per se rule of invalidity,” which can only be overcome by a showing that the State has no other means to advance a legitimate local purpose.

B

[11] Following the lead of the Sixth Circuit in Daviess County, the haulers argue vigorously that the Counties’ ordinances discriminate against interstate commerce under Carbone. In Carbone, the town of Clarkstown, New York, hired a private contractor to build a waste transfer station. According to the terms of the deal, the contractor would operate the facility for five years, charging an above-market tipping fee of $81 per ton; after five years, the town would buy the facility for one dollar. The town guaranteed that the facility would receive a certain volume of trash per year. To make good on its promise, Clarkstown passed a flow control ordinance requiring that all nonhazardous solid waste within the town be deposited at the transfer facility.

[12] This Court struck down the ordinance, holding that it discriminated against interstate commerce by “hoard[ing] solid waste, and the demand to get rid of it, for the benefit of the preferred processing facility.” The dissent pointed out that all of this Court’s local processing cases involved laws that discriminated in favor of private entities, not public ones. According to the dissent, Clarkstown’s ostensibly private transfer station was “essentially a municipal facility,” and this distinction should have saved Clarkstown’s ordinance because favoring local government is by its nature different from favoring a particular private company. The majority did not comment on the dissent’s public-private distinction.

[13] The parties in this case draw opposite inferences from the majority’s silence. The haulers say it proves that the majority agreed with the dissent’s characterization of the facility, but thought there was no difference under the dormant Commerce Clause between laws favoring private entities and those favoring public ones. The Counties disagree, arguing that the majority studiously avoided the issue because the facility in Carbone was private, and therefore the question whether public facilities may be favored was not properly before the Court.

[14] We believe the latter interpretation of Carbone is correct. As the Second Circuit explained, “in Carbone the Justices were divided over the fact of whether the favored facility was public or private, rather than on the import of that distinction.” The Carbone dissent offered a number of reasons why public entities should be treated differently from private ones under the dormant Commerce Clause. It is hard to suppose that the Carbone majority definitively rejected these arguments without explaining why.

C

[15] The flow control ordinances in this case benefit a clearly public facility, while treating all private companies exactly the same. Because the question is now squarely presented on the facts of the case before us, we decide that such flow control ordinances do not discriminate against interstate commerce for purposes of the dormant Commerce Clause.

[16] Compelling reasons justify treating these laws differently from laws favoring particular private businesses over their competitors. “Conceptually, of course, any notion of discrimination assumes a comparison of substantially similar entities.” General Motors Corp. v. Tracy, 519 U.S. 278 (1997). But States and municipalities are not private businesses— far from it. Unlike private enterprise, government is vested with the responsibility of protecting the health, safety, and welfare of its citizens.These important responsibilities set state and local government apart from a typical private business.

**

[17] Given these differences, it does not make sense to regard laws favoring local government and laws favoring private industry with equal skepticism. As our local processing cases demonstrate, when a law favors in-state business over out-of-state competition, rigorous scrutiny is appropriate because the law is often the product of “simple economic protectionism.” Wyoming v. Oklahoma, 502 U.S. 437(1992);Laws favoring local government, by contrast, may be directed toward any number of legitimate goals unrelated to protectionism. Here the flow control ordinances enable the Counties to pursue particular policies with respect to the handling and treatment of waste generated in the Counties, while allocating the costs of those policies on citizens and businesses according to the volume of waste they generate.

[18] The contrary approach of treating public and private entities the same under the dormant Commerce Clause would lead to unprecedented and unbounded interference by the courts with state and local government. The dormant Commerce Clause is not a roving license for federal courts to decide what activities are appropriate for state and local government to undertake, and what activities must be the province of private market competition. In this case, the citizens of Oneida and Herkimer Counties have chosen the government to provide waste management services, with a limited role for the private sector in arranging for transport of waste from the curb to the public facilities. The citizens could have left the entire matter for the private sector, in which case any regulation they undertook could not discriminate against interstate commerce. But it was also open to them to vest responsibility for the matter with their government, and to adopt flow control ordinances to support the government effort. It is not the office of the Commerce Clause to control the decision of the voters on whether government or the private sector should provide waste management services. “The Commerce Clause significantly limits the ability of States and localities to regulate or otherwise burden the flow of interstate commerce, but it does not elevate free trade above all other values.” Maine v. Taylor, 477 U.S., at 151, 106 S.Ct. 2440.

**

[19] Finally, it bears mentioning that the most palpable harm imposed by the ordinances—more expensive trash removal—is likely to fall upon the very people who voted for the laws. Our dormant Commerce Clause cases often find discrimination when a State shifts the costs of regulation to other States, because when “the burden of state regulation falls on interests outside the state, it is unlikely to be alleviated by the operation of those political restraints normally exerted when interests within the state are affected.” Southern Pacific Co. v. Arizona ex rel. Sullivan, 325 U.S. 761(1945). Here, the citizens and businesses of the Counties bear the costs of the ordinances. There is no reason to step in and hand local businesses a victory they could not obtain through the political process.

[20] We hold that the Counties’ flow control ordinances, which treat in-state private business interests exactly the same as out-of-state ones, do not “discriminate against interstate commerce” for purposes of the dormant Commerce Clause.

D

[21] The Counties’ flow control ordinances are properly analyzed under the test set forth in Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc. (1970), which is reserved for laws “directed to legitimate local concerns, with effects upon interstate commerce that are only incidental.” Philadelphia v. New Jersey, 437 U.S., at 624,. Under the Pike test, we will uphold a nondiscriminatory statute like this one “unless the burden imposed on [interstate] commerce is clearly excessive in relation to the putative local benefits.”

[22] After years of discovery, both the Magistrate Judge and the District Court could not detect any disparate impact on out-of-state as opposed to in-state businesses. The Second Circuit alluded to, but did not endorse, a “rather abstract harm” that may exist because “the Counties’ flow control ordinances have removed the waste generated in Oneida and Herkimer Counties from the national marketplace for waste processing services.” We find it unnecessary to decide whether the ordinances impose any incidental burden on interstate commerce because any arguable burden does not exceed the public benefits of the ordinances.

[23] The ordinances give the Counties a convenient and effective way to finance their integrated package of waste-disposal services. While “revenue generation is not a local interest that can justify discrimination against interstate commerce,”we think it is a cognizable benefit for purposes of the Pike test.

[24] At the same time, the ordinances are more than financing tools. They increase recycling in at least two ways, conferring significant health and environmental benefits upon the citizens of the Counties. First, they create enhanced incentives for recycling and proper disposal of other kinds of waste. Solid waste disposal is expensive in Oneida-Herkimer, but the Counties accept recyclables and many forms of hazardous waste for free, effectively encouraging their citizens to sort their own trash. Second, by requiring all waste to be deposited at Authority facilities, the Counties have markedly increased their ability to enforce recycling laws. If the haulers could take waste to any disposal site, achieving an equal level of enforcement would be much more costly, if not impossible. For these reasons, any arguable burden the ordinances impose on interstate commerce does not exceed their public benefits.

[25] The Counties’ ordinances are exercises of the police power in an effort to address waste disposal, a typical and traditional concern of local government. The haulers nevertheless ask us to hold that laws favoring public entities while treating all private businesses the same are subject to an almost per se rule of invalidity, because of asserted discrimination. In the alternative, they maintain that the Counties’ laws cannot survive the more permissive Pike test, because of asserted burdens on commerce. There is a common thread to these arguments: They are invitations to rigorously scrutinize economic legislation passed under the auspices of the police power. There was a time when this Court presumed to make such binding judgments for society, under the guise of interpreting the Due Process Clause. See Lochner v. New York (1905). We should not seek to reclaim that ground for judicial supremacy under the banner of the dormant Commerce Clause.

[26] The judgments of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit are affirmed.

[27] It is so ordered.

Justice SCALIA, concurring in part.

[1] I have been willing to enforce on stare decisis grounds a “negative” self-executing Commerce Clause in two situations: “(1) against a state law that facially discriminates against interstate commerce, and (2) against a state law that is indistinguishable from a type of law previously held unconstitutional by the Court.” West Lynn Creamery, Inc. v. Healy, 512 U.S. 186, 210, (1994) (SCALIA, J., concurring in judgment). As today’s opinion makes clear, the flow-control law at issue in this case meets neither condition. It benefits a public entity performing a traditional local-government function and treats all private entities precisely the same way. “Disparate treatment constitutes discrimination only if the objects of the disparate treatment are, for the relevant purposes, similarly situated.” Camps Newfound/Owatonna, Inc. v. Town of Harrison, 520 U.S. 564, 601(1997) (SCALIA, J., dissenting). None of this Court’s cases concludes that public entities and private entities are similarly situated for Commerce Clause purposes. To hold that they are “would broaden the negative Commerce Clause beyond its existing scope, and intrude on a regulatory sphere traditionally occupied by … the States.” Tracy, supra, at 313, 117 S.Ct. 811 (SCALIA, J., concurring).

[2] I am unable to join Part II-D of the principal opinion, in which the plurality performs so-called “Pike balancing.” Generally speaking, the balancing of various values is left to Congress—which is precisely what the Commerce Clause (the real Commerce Clause) envisions.

Justice THOMAS, concurring in the judgment.

[1] I concur in the judgment. Although I joined C & A Carbone, Inc. v. Clarkstown, 511 U.S. 383 (1994), I no longer believe it was correctly decided. The negative Commerce Clause has no basis in the Constitution and has proved unworkable in practice. As the debate between the majority and dissent shows, application of the negative Commerce Clause turns solely on policy considerations, not on the Constitution. Because this Court has no policy role in regulating interstate commerce, I would discard the Court’s negative Commerce Clause jurisprudence.

**

[2] The Court’s policy preferences are an unsuitable basis for constitutional doctrine because they shift over time,

[3] [T]oday’s majority and dissent . . . rest on the erroneous assumption that the Court must choose between economic protectionism and the free market. But the Constitution vests that fundamentally legislative choice in Congress. To the extent that Congress does not exercise its authority to make that choice, the Constitution does not limit the States’ power to regulate commerce. In the face of congressional silence, the States are free to set the balance between protectionism and the free market. Instead of accepting this constitutional reality, the Court’s negative Commerce Clause jurisprudence gives nine Justices of this Court the power to decide the appropriate balance.

**

[4] “The dormant Commerce Clause is not a roving license for federal courts to decide what activities are appropriate for state and local government to undertake, and what activities must be the province of private market competition.

…..

[5] “There is no reason to step in and hand local businesses a victory they could not obtain through the political process.”

[6] I agree that the Commerce Clause is not a “roving license” and that the Court should not deliver to businesses victories that they failed to obtain through the political process. I differ with the Court because I believe its powerful rhetoric is completely undermined by the doctrine it applies.

[7] Because I believe that the power to regulate interstate commerce is a power given to Congress and not the Court, I concur in the judgment of the Court.

Justice ALITO, with whom Justice STEVENS and Justice KENNEDY join, dissenting.

[1] In C & A Carbone, Inc. v. Clarkstown (1994), we held that “a so-called flow control ordinance, which require[d] all solid waste to be processed at a designated transfer station before leaving the municipality,” discriminated against interstate commerce and was invalid under the Commerce Clause because it “depriv[ed] competitors, including out-of-state firms, of access to a local market.” Because the provisions challenged in this case are essentially identical to the ordinance invalidated in Carbone, I respectfully dissent.

**

[2] The fact that the flow control laws at issue discriminate in favor of a government-owned enterprise does not meaningfully distinguish this case from Carbone. The preferred facility in Carbone was, to be sure, nominally owned by a private contractor who had built the facility on the town’s behalf, but it would be misleading to describe the facility as private.

**

[3] In any event, we have never treated discriminatory legislation with greater deference simply because the entity favored by that legislation was a government-owned enterprise.

**

[4] The Court has long subjected discriminatory legislation to strict scrutiny, and has never, until today, recognized an exception for discrimination in favor of a state-owned entity.

**

[5] Under the market-participant doctrine, a State is permitted to exercise “`independent discretion as to parties with whom [it] will deal.'” (1980). The doctrine thus allows States to engage in certain otherwise-discriminatory practices (e.g., selling exclusively to, or buying exclusively from, the State’s own residents), so long as the State is “acting as a market participant, rather than as a market regulator,” South-Central Timber Development, Inc. v. Wunnicke (1984).

[6] Respondents are doing exactly what the market-participant doctrine says they cannot: While acting as market participants by operating a fee-for-service business enterprise in an area in which there is an established interstate market, respondents are also regulating that market in a discriminatory manner and claiming that their special governmental status somehow insulates them from a dormant Commerce Clause challenge.

**

[7] Like the ordinance in Dean Milk, these laws discriminate against interstate commerce (generally favoring local interests over nonlocal interests), but are defended on the ground that they serve legitimate goals unrelated to protectionism (e.g., health, safety, and protection of the environment). And while I do not question that the laws at issue in this case serve legitimate goals, the laws offend the dormant Commerce Clause because those goals could be attained effectively through nondiscriminatory means. Indeed, no less than in Carbone, those goals could be achieved through “uniform [health and] safety regulations enacted without the object to discriminate” that “would ensure that competitors [to the municipal program] do not underprice the market by cutting corners on environmental safety.”

**

[8] The dormant Commerce Clause has long been understood to prohibit the kind of discriminatory legislation upheld by the Court in this case. I would therefore reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals.

Justice GORSUCH announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which Justice THOMAS and Justice KAVANAUGH join.

[1] Virginia Uranium insists that the federal Atomic Energy Act preempts a state law banning uranium mining, but we do not see it. True, the AEA gives the Nuclear Regulatory Commission significant authority over the milling, transfer, use, and disposal of uranium, as well as the construction and operation of nuclear power plants. But Congress conspicuously chose to leave untouched the States’ historic authority over the regulation of mining activities on private lands within their borders. Nor do we see anything to suggest that the enforcement of Virginia’s law would frustrate the AEA’s purposes and objectives. And we are hardly free to extend a federal statute to a sphere Congress was well aware of but chose to leave alone. In this, as in any field of statutory interpretation, it is our duty to respect not only what Congress wrote but, as importantly, what it didn’t write.

I

[2] Virginia Uranium thought its plan was pretty straightforward. First, the company wanted to use conventional mining techniques to extract raw uranium ore from a site near Coles Hill, Virginia. Next, it intended to mill that ore into a usable form. Typically performed at the mine site, milling involves grinding the ore into sand-sized grains and then exposing it to a chemical solution that leaches out pure uranium. Once dried, the resulting mixture forms a solid “yellowcake,” which the company planned to sell to enrichment facilities that produce fuel for nuclear reactors. Finally, because the leaching process does not remove all of the uranium from the ore, the company expected to store the leftover “tailings” near the mine to reduce the chances of contaminating the air or water.

[3] But putting the plan into action didn’t prove so simple. Pursuant to the AEA, the NRC regulates milling  and tailing storage activities nationwide, and it has issued an array of rules on these subjects. None of those, though, proved the real problem for Virginia Uranium. The company hit a roadblock even before it could get to the point where the NRC’s rules kick in: State law flatly prohibits uranium mining in Virginia. To overcome that obstacle, Virginia Uranium filed this lawsuit. The company alleged that, under the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, the AEA preempts state uranium mining laws like Virginia’s and ensconces the NRC as the lone regulator in the field. And because the NRC’s regulations say nothing about uranium mining, the company continued, it remains free to mine as it will in Virginia or elsewhere.

[4] Both the district court and a divided panel of the Fourth Circuit rejected the company’s argument. The courts acknowledged that the AEA affords the NRC considerable authority over the nuclear fuel life cycle. But both courts found missing from the AEA any hint that Congress sought to strip States of their traditional power to regulate mining on private lands within their borders. Given the significance of the question presented, we granted review.

II

[5] The Supremacy Clause supplies a rule of priority. It provides that the “Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof,” are “the supreme Law of the Land ... any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any state to the Contrary notwithstanding.” Art. VI, cl. 2. This Court has sometimes used different labels to describe the different ways in which federal statutes may displace state laws—speaking, for example, of express, field, and conflict preemption. But these categories “are not rigidly distinct.” And at least one feature unites them: Invoking some brooding federal interest or appealing to a judicial policy preference should never be enough to win preemption of a state law; a litigant must point specifically to “a constitutional text or a federal statute” that does the displacing or conflicts with state law. Before us, Virginia Uranium contends that the AEA (and only the AEA) unseats state uranium mining regulations and that it does so under the doctrines of both field and conflict preemption. We examine these arguments about the AEA’s preemptive effect much as we would any other about statutory meaning, looking to the text and context of the law in question and guided by the traditional tools of statutory interpretation. Here, no more than in any statutory interpretation dispute, is it enough for any party or court to rest on a supposition (or wish) that “it must be in there somewhere.”

A

[6] We begin with the company’s claim that the text and structure of the AEA reserve the regulation of uranium mining for the purpose of addressing nuclear safety concerns to the NRC alone—and almost immediately problems emerge. Unlike many federal statutes, the AEA contains no provision preempting state law in so many words. Even more pointedly, the statute grants the NRC extensive and sometimes exclusive authority to regulate nearly every aspect of the nuclear fuel life cycle except mining. Companies like Virginia Uranium must abide the NRC’s rules and regulations if they wish to handle enriched uranium, to mill uranium ore or store tailings, or to build or run a nuclear power plant. But when it comes to mining, the statute speaks very differently, expressly stating that the NRC’s regulatory powers arise only “after [uranium’s] removal from its place of deposit in nature.” As the government itself has conceded, this means that “uranium mining” lies “outside the NRC’s jurisdiction,” and the agency’s grip takes hold only “at the mill, rather than at the mine.”

[7] What the text states, context confirms. After announcing a general rule that mining regulation lies outside the NRC’s jurisdiction, the AEA carves out a notably narrow exception. On federal lands, the statute says, the NRC may regulate uranium mining. And if the federal government wants to control mining of uranium on private land, the AEA tells the NRC exactly what to do: It may purchase or seize the land by eminent domain and make it federal land. Congress thus has spoken directly to the question of uranium mining on private land, and every bit of what it’s said indicates that state authority remains untouched. Later amendments to the AEA point to the same conclusion. Some years after the statute’s passage, Congress added a provision, allowing the NRC to devolve certain of its regulatory powers to the States. Unsurprisingly, Congress indicated that the NRC must maintain regulatory control over especially sensitive activities like the construction of nuclear power plants. But under § 2021(b) the NRC may now, by agreement, pass to the States some of its preexisting authorities to regulate various nuclear materials “for the protection of the public health and safety from radiation hazards.” Out of apparent concern that courts might (mis)read these new provisions as prohibiting States from regulating any activity even tangentially related to nuclear power without first reaching an agreement with the NRC, Congress added subsection (k):

[8] “Nothing in this section [that is, § 2021] shall be construed to affect the authority of any State or local agency to regulate activities for purposes other than protection against radiation hazards.”

[9] Section 2021, thus, did nothing to extend the NRC’s power to activities, like mining, historically beyond its reach. Instead, it served only to allow the NRC to share with the States some of the powers previously reserved to the federal government. Even then, the statute explained in subsection (k) that States remain free to regulate the activities discussed in § 2021 for purposes other than nuclear safety without the NRC’s consent. Indeed, if anything, subsection (k) might be described as a non-preemption clause.

[10] Virginia Uranium’s case hinges on a very different construction of subsection (k). The company suggests that, properly read, the provision greatly expands the preemptive effect of the AEA and demands the displacement of any state law (touching on mining or any other subject) if that law was enacted for the purpose of protecting the public against “radiation hazards.” And, the company adds, Virginia’s law bears just such an impermissible purpose.

[11] In our view, this reading nearly turns the provision on its head. Subsection (k) does not displace traditional state regulation over mining or otherwise extend the NRC’s grasp to matters previously beyond its control. It does not expose every state law on every subject to a searching judicial inquiry into its latent purposes. Instead and much more modestly, it clarifies that “nothing in this [new] section [2021]”—a section allowing for the devolution-by-agreement of federal regulatory authority—should be construed to curtail the States’ ability to regulate the activities discussed in that same section for purposes other than protecting against radiation hazards. So only state laws that seek to regulate the activities discussed in § 2021 without an NRC agreement—activities like the construction of nuclear power plants—may be scrutinized to ensure their purposes aim at something other than regulating nuclear safety. Really, to accomplish all it wants, Virginia Uranium would have to persuade us to read 13 words out of the statute and add 2 more:

[12] any State or local agency may regulate activities only for purposes other than protection against radiation hazards.

[13] That may be a statute some would prefer, but it is not the statute we have.

[14] Just consider what would follow from Virginia Uranium’s interpretation. Not only would States be prohibited from regulating uranium mining to protect against radiation hazards; the federal government likely would be barred from doing so as well. After all, the NRC has long believed, and still maintains, that the AEA affords it no authority to regulate uranium mining on private land. Nor does Virginia Uranium dispute the federal government’s understanding. Admittedly, if Virginia Uranium were to prevail here, the NRC might respond by changing course and seeking to regulate uranium mining for the first time. But given the statute’s terms, the prospects that it might do so successfully in the face of a legal challenge appear gloomy. Admittedly, as well, federal air and water and other regulations might apply at a uranium mine much as at any other workplace. But the possibility that both state and federal authorities would be left unable to regulate the unique risks posed by an activity as potentially hazardous as uranium mining seems more than a little unlikely, and quite a lot to find buried deep in subsection (k).

B

[15] If the best reading of the AEA doesn’t require us to hold the state law before us preempted, Virginia Uranium takes another swing in the same direction. Only this time, the company submits, our precedents have adopted a different, even if maybe doubtful, reading of the AEA that we must follow. Most prominently, Virginia Uranium points to this Court’s decision in Pacific Gas & Elec. Co. v. State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Comm’n, 461 U. S. 190 (1983).

[16] But here, too, problems quickly appear. Pacific Gas rejected a preemption challenge to a state law prohibiting the construction of new nuclear power plants. Along the way, the Court expressly dismissed the notion that § 2021 establishes the federal government as “the sole regulator of all matters nuclear.” The Court observed that subsection (k) addresses itself only to “the preemptive effect of ‘this section,’ that is [§ 2021].” And the Court acknowledged that subsection (k) does not “cut back on pre-existing state authority outside the NRC’s jurisdiction,” a field that surely includes uranium mining. None of this remotely helps Virginia Uranium’s cause.

[17] Still, Virginia Uranium seeks to make the best of a bad situation. The company points out that Pacific Gas upheld the state law at issue there only after observing that it was enacted out of concern with economic development, not for the purpose of addressing radiation safety hazards. From this, the company reasons, we should infer that any state law enacted with the purpose of addressing nuclear hazards must fall thanks to our precedent.

[18] But even that much does not follow. Since the passage of the AEA, the NRC has always played a significant role in regulating the construction of nuclear power plants. Indeed, under § 2021(c) this remains one area where the NRC generally cannot devolve its responsibilities to the States. And because § 2021 classifies the construction of nuclear power plants as one of the core remaining areas of special federal concern, any state law regulating that activity risks being subjected to an inquiry into its purposes under subsection (k). But the activity Virginia’s law regulates—mining on private land—isn’t one the AEA has ever addressed, and it isn’t one § 2021 discusses, so subsection (k) does not authorize any judicial inquiry into state legislative purpose in this case.

[19] Admittedly, there is a wrinkle here. Pacific Gas seemed to accept California’s argument that its law addressed whether new power plants may be built, while the NRC’s regulatory power under § 2021(c) extends only to the question how such plants are constructed and operated. And accepting (without granting) these premises, it would appear that California’s law did not implicate an activity addressed by § 2021, so an inquiry into state legislative purpose under subsection (k) was not statutorily authorized. Yet Pacific Gas inquired anyway, perhaps on the unstated belief that the state law just came “too close” to a core power § 2021(c) reserves to the federal government. Does that mean we must do the same? Certainly Virginia Uranium sees it that way.

[20] We do not. Just because Pacific Gas may have made more of state legislative purposes than the terms of the AEA allow does not mean we must make more of them yet. It is one thing to do as Pacific Gas did and inquire exactingly into state legislative purposes when state law prohibits a regulated activity like the construction of a nuclear plant, and thus comes close to trenching on core federal powers reserved to the federal government by the AEA. It is another thing to do as Virginia Uranium wishes and impose the same exacting scrutiny on state laws prohibiting an activity like mining far removed from the NRC’s historic powers. And without some clearer congressional mandate suggesting an inquiry like that would be appropriate, we decline to undertake it on our own authority. The preemption of state laws represents “a serious intrusion into state sovereignty.” And to order preemption based not on the strength of a clear congressional command, or even on the strength of a judicial gloss requiring that much of us, but based only on a doubtful extension of a questionable judicial gloss would represent not only a significant federal intrusion into state sovereignty. It would also represent a significant judicial intrusion into Congress’s authority to delimit the preemptive effect of its laws. Being in for a dime doesn’t mean we have to be in for a dollar.

[21] This Court’s later cases confirm the propriety of restraint in this area. Our field preemption cases proceed as they do, moreover, for good reasons. Consider just some of the costs to cooperative federalism and individual liberty we would invite by inquiring into state legislative purpose too precipitately. The natural tendency of regular federal judicial inquiries into state legislative intentions would be to stifle deliberation in state legislatures and encourage resort to secrecy and subterfuge. That would inhibit the sort of open and vigorous legislative debate that our Constitution recognizes as vital to testing ideas and improving laws. In Virginia Uranium’s vision as well, federal courts would have to allow depositions of state legislators and governors, and perhaps hale them into court for cross-examination at trial about their subjective motivations in passing a mining statute. And at the end of it all, federal courts would risk subjecting similarly situated persons to radically different legal rules as judges uphold and strike down materially identical state regulations based only on the happenstance of judicial assessments of the “true” intentions lurking behind them. In light of all this, it can surprise no one that our precedents have long warned against undertaking potential misadventures into hidden state legislative intentions without a clear statutory mandate for the project.

[22] Beyond these concerns, as well, lie well-known conceptual and practical ones this Court has also advised against inviting unnecessarily. State legislatures are composed of individuals who often pursue legislation for multiple and unexpressed purposes, so what legal rules should determine when and how to ascribe a particular intention to a particular legislator? What if an impermissible intention existed but wasn’t necessary to her vote? And what percentage of the legislature must harbor the impermissible intention before we can impute it to the collective institution? Putting all that aside, how are courts supposed to conduct a reasonable inquiry into these questions when recorded state legislative history materials are often not as readily available or complete as their federal counterparts? And if trying to peer inside legislators’ skulls is too fraught an enterprise, shouldn’t we limit ourselves to trying to glean legislative purposes from the statutory text where we began? Even Pacific Gas warned future courts against too hastily accepting a litigant’s invitation to “become embroiled in attempting to ascertain” state legislative “motive[s],” acknowledging that such inquiries “often” prove “unsatisfactory venture[s]. What motivates one legislator to vote for a statute is not necessarily what motivates scores of others to enact it.” We think these warnings wise, and we heed them today.

C

[23] If the AEA doesn’t occupy the field of radiation safety in uranium mining, Virginia Uranium suggests the statute still displaces state law through what’s sometimes called conflict preemption. In particular, the company suggests, Virginia’s mining law stands as an impermissible “obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress.” On Virginia Uranium’s account, Congress sought to capture the benefits of developing nuclear power while mitigating its safety and environmental costs. And, the company contends, Virginia’s moratorium disrupts the delicate “balance” Congress sought to achieve between these benefits and costs. Maybe the text of the AEA doesn’t touch on mining in so many words, but its authority to regulate later stages of the nuclear fuel life cycle would be effectively undermined if mining laws like Virginia’s were allowed.

[24] A sound preemption analysis cannot be as simplistic as that. No more than in field preemption can the Supremacy Clause be deployed here to elevate abstract and unenacted legislative desires above state law; only federal laws “made in pursuance of” the Constitution, through its prescribed processes of bicameralism and presentment, are entitled to preemptive effect. Art. VI, cl. 2. So any “[e]vidence of pre-emptive purpose,” whether express or implied, must therefore be “sought in the text and structure of the statute at issue.”

[25] Sound and well-documented reasons underlie this rule too. Efforts to ascribe unenacted purposes and objectives to a federal statute face many of the same challenges as inquiries into state legislative intent. Trying to discern what motivates legislators individually and collectively invites speculation and risks overlooking the reality that individual Members of Congress often pursue multiple and competing purposes, many of which are compromised to secure a law’s passage and few of which are fully realized in the final product ... So it may be that Congress meant the AEA to promote the development of nuclear power. It may be that Congress meant the AEA to balance that goal against various safety concerns. But it also may be that Members of Congress held many other disparate or conflicting goals in mind when they voted to enact and amend the AEA, and many different views on exactly how to manage the competing costs and benefits. If polled, they might have reached very different assessments, as well, about the consistency of Virginia’s law with their own purposes and objectives. The only thing a court can be sure of is what can be found in the law itself. And every indication in the law before us suggests that Congress elected to leave mining regulation on private land to the States and grant the NRC regulatory authority only after uranium is removed from the earth. That compromise may not be the only permissible or even the most rationally attractive one, but it is surely both permissible and rational to think that Congress might have chosen to regulate the more novel aspects of nuclear power while leaving to States their traditional function of regulating mining activities on private lands within their boundaries.

[26] As an alternative to proceeding down the purposes-and-objectives branch of conflict preemption, Virginia Uranium might have pursued another. Our cases have held that we can sometimes infer a congressional intent to displace a state law that makes compliance with a federal statute impossible. But Virginia Uranium hasn’t pursued an argument along any of these lines, and understandably so. Not only can Virginia Uranium comply with both state and federal laws; it is also unclear whether laws like Virginia’s might have a meaningful impact on the development of nuclear power in this country. Some estimate that the United States currently imports over 90 percent of the uranium used in this country. Domestic uranium mines currently exist on federal lands as well and are thus beyond the reach of state authorities. And if the federal government concludes that development of the Coles Hill deposit or any other like it is crucial, it may always purchase the site (or seize it through eminent domain) under the powers Congress has supplied. All this may be done without even amending the AEA, itself another course which Congress is always free to pursue—but which this Court should never be tempted into pursuing on its own.

[27] The judgment of the court of appeals is

[28] Affirmed.

Concurrence

Justice GINSBURG, with whom Justice SOTOMAYOR and Justice KAGAN join, concurring in the judgment.

[1] Soon after discovery of a large deposit of uranium ore in Virginia in the late 1970s, the Commonwealth banned uranium mining. Petitioners (collectively, Virginia Uranium) now seek to mine that deposit. They challenge the Commonwealth’s uranium mining ban as preempted by the Atomic Energy Act (AEA or Act either because the ban intrudes on the federally occupied field of nuclear safety, or because it obstructs realization of federal purposes and objectives.

[2] I reach the same bottom-line judgment as does Justice GORSUCH: The Commonwealth’s mining ban is not preempted. And I agree with much contained in Justice GORSUCH’s opinion. But his discussion of the perils of inquiring into legislative motive, sweeps well beyond the confines of this case, and therefore seems to me inappropriate in an opinion speaking for the Court, rather than for individual members of the Court. Further, Virginia Uranium’s obstacle preemption arguments fail under existing doctrine, so there is little reason to question, as Justice GORSUCH does, whether that doctrine should be retained. For these reasons, I join the Court’s judgment, and separately state how I would resolve the instant controversy.

...

II

[3] Under the Supremacy Clause, the “Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof,” are “the supreme Law of the Land.” Art. VI, cl. 2. “Put simply, federal law preempts contrary state law.” This Court has delineated three circumstances in which state law must yield to federal law. First, and most obvious, federal law operates exclusively when Congress expressly preempts state law. Second, state law can play no part when “Congress has legislated comprehensively to occupy an entire field of regulation, leaving no room for the States to supplement federal law.” Third, state law is rendered inoperative when it “actually conflicts with federal law,” as when a private party cannot “comply with both state and federal requirements,” or when state law “creates an unacceptable ‘obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress.’”Virginia Uranium invokes both field and obstacle preemption; I address each in turn.

A

[4] Virginia Uranium’s primary contention is that Congress has occupied the field of nuclear safety regulation, preempting state laws enacted because of concerns about the radiation safety of federally regulated activities. Defining the preempted field by reference to the purpose for which state laws were enacted finds “some support in the text of the [AEA],” § 2021(k). Again, this provision states that “[n]othing in [§ 2021] shall be construed to affect the authority of any State ... to regulate activities for purposes other than protection against radiation hazards.” (Emphasis added.) Section 2021(k) presupposes federal preemption of at least some state laws enacted to guard “against radiation hazards.” The Commonwealth Defendants would exclude from federal foreclosure state laws directed to activities not regulated by the NRC. The Commonwealth Defendants have the better reading of the statute.

1

[5] The Commonwealth has forbidden only conventional uranium mining on private land, an activity all agree is not federally regulated. The controlling AEA provision, § 2092, triggers federal regulation only when source material is “remov[ed] from its place of deposit in nature.” Federal authorities have long read that provision to preclude federal regulation of conventional uranium mining. In contrast to the AEA’s express provisions for uranium mining on public lands, the Act is nearly silent about conventional uranium mining on private lands. Indeed, insofar as the Act addresses private conventional mining, it does so to bar federal regulators from obtaining reports about ore “prior to removal from its place of deposit in nature.” Every indication, then, is that Congress left private conventional mining unregulated. And if Congress did not provide for regulation of private conventional mining, it is hard to see how or why state law on the subject would be preempted, whatever the reason for the law’s enactment.

...

B

[6] Nor is the Commonwealth’s mining ban preempted as an “unacceptable obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress.” Together, Virginia Uranium and the United States identify four ways in which the mining ban supposedly conflicts with federal purposes and objectives. None carry the day.

[7] First, Virginia Uranium contends that the mining ban conflicts with the “delicate balance” federal law has struck between promoting nuclear power and ensuring public safety. But the Federal Government does not regulate the radiological safety of conventional uranium mining on private land, so federal law struck no balance in this area.

[8] Second, Virginia Uranium contends that the mining ban “prohibit[s] the achievement of one of Congress[’] ‘primary purpose[s]’: ‘the promotion of nuclear power.’” PG&E, however, dismissed the suggestion that Congress had a policy of promoting nuclear power “at all costs.” Given the absence of federal regulation in point, it is improbable that the Federal Government has a purpose or objective of promoting conventional uranium mining on private land.

[9] Virginia Uranium warns of dire consequences if all 50 States enact bans similar to the Commonwealth’s. But, as the Court of Appeals explained, numerous domestic uranium recovery facilities are federally regulated (either because they sit on federal land or use unconventional mining techniques) and are “thus beyond the reach of any state bans”; and the AEA authorizes the Federal Government to develop uranium deposits on public lands and to acquire private deposits. Federal purposes and objectives do not require judicial supplementation of the AEA’s express provisions for maintaining the uranium supply.

[10] Third, Virginia Uranium argues that § 2021 provides the sole means for States to regulate radiological safety hazards resulting from milling and tailings storage, and that Virginia has effectively regulated milling and tailings storage without obtaining authority to do so through an adequate § 2021 agreement. Virginia has not regulated the radiological safety of tailings storage; it has prohibited only an antecedent activity subject to exclusive state authority.

[11] Finally, the United States contends that Virginia’s mining ban frustrates federal purposes and objectives by “prevent[ing] the occurrence of” activities that Congress intended the Federal Government to regulate. But federal regulation of certain activities does not mean that States must authorize activities antecedent to those federally regulated. For example, federal regulation of nuclear powerplants does not demand that States allow the construction of such powerplants in the first place.

[12] For the reasons stated, I concur in the Court’s judgment affirming the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

Dissent

Chief Justice ROBERTS, with whom Justice BREYER and Justice ALITO join, dissenting.

[1] Although one party will be happy with the result of today’s decision, both will be puzzled by its reasoning. That’s because the lead opinion sets out to defeat an argument that no one made, reaching a conclusion with which no one disagrees. Specifically, the opinion devotes its analysis to whether the field of uranium mining safety is preempted under the Atomic Energy Act, ultimately concluding that it is not. But no party disputes that. Rather, the question we agreed to address is whether a State can purport to regulate a field that is not preempted (uranium mining safety) as an indirect means of regulating other fields that are preempted (safety concerns about uranium milling and tailings). And on that question, our precedent is clear: The AEA prohibits state laws that have the purpose and effect of regulating preempted fields.

...

[2] The company’s theory of the case is fairly straightforward. The property at issue here contains the largest known uranium deposit in the country and one of the largest in the world. Shortly after its discovery, Virginia enacted a complete ban on uranium mining. According to the company, the ban was not motivated by concerns about mining safety. Instead, it was motivated by Virginia’s desire to ban the more hazardous steps that come after mining—uranium milling and the storage of radioactive tailings—due to the Commonwealth’s disagreement with the NRC over how to safely regulate those activities. And, crucially, Virginia has yet to put forward any other rationale to support the ban. Thus, the question before us is whether, consistent with the AEA and our precedents, the Commonwealth may purport to regulate a non-preempted field (mining safety) with the purpose and effect of indirectly regulating a preempted field (milling and tailings). That should have made for an easy case.

[3] Under our AEA precedents, a state law is preempted not only when it “conflicts with federal law,” but also when its purpose is to regulate within a preempted field. Because “the Federal Government has occupied the entire field of nuclear safety concerns,” a state law that is “grounded in [such] safety concerns falls squarely within the prohibited field.” Here, because Virginia has not even disputed that its uranium mining ban was “grounded in” its “nuclear safety concerns” about uranium milling and tailings, the company’s preemption claim should not have been dismissed.

***

JUSTICE WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court.
* * *
This case requires us to determine whether a state-authorized award of punitive damages arising out of the escape of plutonium from a federally licensed nuclear facility is pre-empted either because it falls within that forbidden field or because it conflicts with some other aspect of the Atomic Energy Act.

Karen Silkwood was a laboratory analyst for Kerr-McGee at its Cimarron plant near Crescent, Okla. The plant fabricated plutonium fuel pins for use as reactor fuel in nuclear powerplants. Accordingly, the plant was subject to licensing and regulation by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) (then the Atomic Energy Commission) pursuant to the Atomic Energy Act, 42 U. S. C. § 2011 et seq. (1976 ed. and Supp. V).

During a 3-day period of November 1974, Silkwood was contaminated by plutonium from the Cimarron plant. On November 5, Silkwood was grinding and polishing plutonium samples, utilizing glove boxes designed for that purpose. In accordance with established procedures, she checked her hands for contamination when she withdrew them from the glove box. When some contamination was detected, a more extensive check was performed. A monitoring device revealed contamination on Silkwood’s left hand, right wrist, upper arm, neck, hair, and nostrils. She was immediately decontaminated, and at the end of her shift, the monitors detected no contamination. However, she was given urine and fecal kits and was instructed to collect samples in order to check for plutonium discharge.

The next day, Silkwood arrived at the plant and began doing paperwork in the laboratory. Upon leaving the laboratory, Silkwood monitored herself and again discovered surface contamination. Once again, she was decontaminated.

On the third day, November 7, Silkwood was monitored upon her arrival at the plant. High levels of contamination were detected. Four urine samples and one fecal sample submitted that morning were also highly contaminated. Suspecting that the contamination had spread to areas outside the plant, the company directed a decontamination squad to accompany Silkwood to her apartment. Silkwood’s roommate, who was also an employee at the plant, was awakened and monitored. She was also contaminated, although to a lesser degree than Silkwood. The squad then monitored the apartment, finding contamination in several rooms, with especially high levels in the bathroom, the kitchen, and Silkwood’s bedroom.

The contamination level in Silkwood’s apartment was such that many of her personal belongings had to be destroyed. Silkwood herself was sent to the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory to determine the extent of contamination in her vital body organs. She returned to work on November 13. That night, she was killed in an unrelated automobile accident.

Bill Silkwood, Karen’s father, brought the present diversity action in his capacity as administrator of her estate. The action was based on commonlaw tort principles under Oklahoma law and was designed to recover for the contamination injuries to Karen’s person and property.

* * *
[T]he court submitted the claims to the jury on alternative theories of strict liability and negligence.

The court also instructed the jury with respect to punitive damages, explaining the standard by which Kerr-McGee’s conduct was to be evaluated in determining whether such damages should be awarded:

“[T]he jury may give damages for the sake of example and by way of punishment, if the jury finds the defendant or defendants have been guilty of oppression, fraud, or malice, actual or presumed. . . .

“Exemplary damages are not limited to cases where there is direct evidence of fraud, malice or gross negligence. They may be allowed when there is evidence of such recklessness and wanton disregard of another’s rights that malice and evil intent will be inferred. If a defendant is grossly and wantonly reckless in exposing others to dangers, the law holds him to have intended the natural consequences of his acts, and treats him as guilty of a willful wrong.”

The jury returned a verdict in favor of Mr. Silkwood, finding actual damages of $505,000 ($500,000 for personal injuries and $5,000 for property damage) and punitive damages of $10 million. The trial court entered judgment against Kerr-McGee in that amount.

* * *

The [10th Circuit court on appeal] first held that recovery for Silkwood’s personal injuries was controlled exclusively by Oklahoma’s workers’ compensation law. It thus reversed the $500,000 judgment for those injuries. The court then affirmed the property damage portion of the award, holding that the workers’ compensation law applied only to personal injuries and that Oklahoma law permitted an award under a theory of strict liability in the circumstances of this case. Finally, the court held that because of the federal statutes regulating the Kerr-McGee plant, “punitive damages may not be awarded in this case.”

In reaching its conclusion with respect to the punitive damages award, the
Court of Appeals adopted a broad pre-emption analysis. It concluded that “any state action that competes substantially with the AEC (NRC) in its regulation of radiation hazards associated with plants handling nuclear material” was impermissible. Because “[a] judicial award of exemplary damages under state law as punishment for bad practices or to deter future practices involving exposure to radiation is not less intrusive than direct legislative acts of the state,” the court determined that such awards were pre-empted by federal law.
Mr. Silkwood appealed, seeking review of the Court of Appeals’ ruling with respect to the punitive damages award.

* * *
As we recently observed in Pacific Gas & Electric Co. v. State Energy Resources Conservation & Development Comm’n, 461 U. S. 190 (1983), state law can be pre-empted in either of two general ways. If Congress evidences an intent to occupy a given field, any state law falling within that field is pre-empted. If Congress has not entirely displaced state regulation over the matter in question, state law is still pre-empted to the extent it actually conflicts with federal law, that is, when it is impossible to comply with both state and federal law, or where the state law stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment of the full purposes and objectives of Congress. KerrMcGee contends that the award in this case is invalid under either analysis. We consider each of these contentions in turn.

In Pacific Gas & Electric, an examination of the statutory scheme and legislative history of the Atomic Energy Act convinced us that “Congress . . . intended that the Federal Government should regulate the radiological safety aspects involved in the construction and operation of a nuclear plant.” Thus, we concluded that “the Federal Government has occupied the entire field of nuclear safety concerns, except the limited powers expressly ceded to the States.”

Kerr-McGee argues that our ruling in Pacific Gas & Electric is dispositive of the issue in this case. Noting that “regulation can be as effectively exerted through an award of damages as through some form of preventive relief.” Kerr-McGee submits that because the state-authorized award of punitive damages in this case punishes and deters conduct related to radiation hazards, it falls within the prohibited field. However, a review of the same legislative history which prompted our holding in Pacific Gas & Electric, coupled with an examination of Congress’ actions with respect to other portions of the Atomic Energy Act, convinces us that the pre-empted field does not extend as far as Kerr-McGee would have it.

As we recounted in Pacific Gas & Electric, “[u]ntil 1954. . . the use, control, and ownership of nuclear technology remained a federal monopoly.” In that year, Congress enacted legislation which provided for private involvement in the development of atomic energy. Atomic Energy Act of 1954). However, the Federal Government retained extensive control over the manner in which this development occurred. In particular, the Atomic Energy Commission was given “exclusive jurisdiction to license the transfer, delivery, receipt, acquisition, possession, and use of nuclear materials.”

In 1959 Congress amended the Atomic Energy Act in order to “clarify the respective responsibilities . . . of the States and the Commission with respect to the regulation of byproduct, source, and special nuclear materials.” 42 U. S. C. § 2021(a)(1). The Commission was authorized to turn some of its regulatory authority over to any State which would adopt a suitable regulatory program. However, the Commission was to retain exclusive regulatory authority over “the disposal of such . . . byproduct, source, or special nuclear material as the Commission determines . . . should, because of the hazards or potential hazards thereof, not be disposed of without a license from the Commission.” 42 U. S. C. § 2021(c)(4). The States were therefore still precluded from regulating the safety aspects of these hazardous materials.

Congress’ decision to prohibit the States from regulating the safety aspects of nuclear development was premised on its belief that the Commission was more qualified to determine what type of safety standards should be enacted in this complex area. As Congress was informed by the AEC, the 1959 legislation provided for continued federal control over the more hazardous materials because “the technical safety considerations are of such complexity that it is not likely that any State would be prepared to deal with them during the foreseeable future.” If there were nothing more, this concern over the States’ inability to formulate effective standards and the foreclosure of the States from conditioning the operation of nuclear plants on compliance with state-imposed safety standards arguably would disallow resort to state-law remedies by those suffering injuries from radiation in a nuclear plant. There is, however, ample evidence that Congress had no intention of forbidding the States to provide such remedies.

Indeed, there is no indication that Congress even seriously considered precluding the use of such remedies either when it enacted the Atomic Energy Act in 1954 or when it amended it in 1959. This silence takes on added significance in light of Congress’ failure to provide any federal remedy for persons injured by such conduct. It is difficult to believe that Congress would, without comment, remove all means of judicial recourse for those injured by illegal conduct.

More importantly, the only congressional discussion concerning the relationship between the Atomic Energy Act and state tort remedies indicates that Congress assumed that such remedies would be available. After the 1954 law was enacted, private companies contemplating entry into the nuclear industry expressed concern over potentially bankrupting statelaw suits arising out of a nuclear incident. As a result, in 1957 Congress passed the Price-Anderson Act, an amendment to the Atomic Energy Act. Pub. L. 85-256, 71 Stat. 576. That Act established an indemnification scheme under which operators of licensed nuclear facilities could be required to obtain up to $60 million in private financial protection against such suits. The Government would then provide indemnification for the next $500 million of liability, and the resulting $560 million would be the limit of liability for any one nuclear incident.

Although the Price-Anderson Act does not apply to the present situation, the discussion preceding its enactment and subsequent amendment indicates that Congress assumed that persons injured by nuclear accidents were free to utilize existing state tort law remedies. The Joint Committee Report on the original version of the Price-Anderson Act explained the relationship between the Act and existing state tort law as follows:
“Since the rights of third parties who are injured are established by State law, there is no interference with the State law until there is a likelihood that the damages exceed the amount of financial responsibility required together with the amount of the indemnity. At that point the Federal interference is limited to the prohibition of making payments through the State courts and to prorating the proceeds available.” S. Rep. No. 296, 85th Cong., 1st Sess., 9 (1957).

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Kerr-McGee focuses on the differences between compensatory and punitive damages awards and asserts that, at most, Congress intended to allow the former. This argument, however, is misdirected because our inquiry is not whether Congress expressly allowed punitive damages awards. Punitive damages have long been a part of traditional state tort law. As we noted above, Congress assumed that traditional principles of state tort law would apply with full force unless they were expressly supplanted. Thus, it is KerrMcGee’s burden to show that Congress intended to preclude such awards. Yet, the company is unable to point to anything in the legislative history or in the regulations that indicates that punitive damages were not to be allowed. To the contrary, the regulations issued implementing the insurance provisions of the Price-Anderson Act themselves contemplate that punitive damages might be awarded under state law.

In sum, it is clear that in enacting and amending the Price-Anderson Act, Congress assumed that state-law remedies, in whatever form they might take, were available to those injured by nuclear incidents. This was so even though it was well aware of the NRC’s exclusive authority to regulate safety matters. No doubt there is tension between the conclusion that safety regulation is the exclusive concern of the federal law and the conclusion that a State may nevertheless award damages based on its own law of liability.

But as we understand what was done over the years in the legislation concerning nuclear energy, Congress intended to stand by both concepts and to tolerate whatever tension there was between them. We can do no less. It may be that the award of damages based on the state law of negligence or strict liability is regulatory in the sense that a nuclear plant will be threatened with damages liability if it does not conform to state standards, but that regulatory consequence was something that Congress was quite willing to accept.

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The United States, as amicus curiae, contends that the award of punitive damages in this case is pre-empted because it conflicts with the federal remedial scheme, noting that the NRC is authorized to impose civil penalties on licensees when federal standards have been violated. However, the award of punitive damages in the present case does not conflict with that scheme. Paying both federal fines and state-imposed punitive damages for the same incident would not appear to be physically impossible. Nor does exposure to punitive damages frustrate any purpose of the federal remedial scheme.

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We conclude that the award of punitive damages in this case is not preempted by federal law.

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JUSTICE BLACKMUN, with whom JUSTICE MARSHALL joins, dissenting.

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The principles set forth in Pacific Gas compel the conclusion that the punitive damages awarded in this case, and now upheld, are pre-empted. The prospect of paying a large fine — in this case a potential $10 million — for failure to operate a nuclear facility in a particular manner has an obvious effect on the safety precautions that nuclear licensees will follow. The Court does not dispute, moreover, that punitive damages are expressly designed for this purpose. Punitive damages are “private fines levied by civil juries.” Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U. S. 323, 350 (1974).

The conduct that the jury’s punitive damages award sought to regulate was the day-to-day safety procedures of nuclear licensees.

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[T]he punitive damages award in this case deters a nuclear facility from operating in the same manner as Kerr-McGee. Authority for a State to do so, however, is precisely what the Court held to be pre-empted in Pacific Gas. Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulations covered virtually every aspect of the incident in which Silkwood was contaminated.

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At the risk of repetition, this case is not about whether Karen Silkwood’s administrator can recover for her injury; it is about whether a person injured by radiation can be awarded an amount in excess of the injury sustained in order to encourage all nuclear operators to spend more on safety. On that issue, the Court’s position is plainly inconsistent with its earlier holding in Pacific Gas that “the Federal Government has occupied the entire field of nuclear safety concerns.” The Court’s insistence on obfuscating the issue in this case cannot change the will of Congress on the issue that is truly before us.

[The dissenting opinion of JUSTICE POWELL, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE, JUSTICE MARSHALL, and JUSTICE BLACKMUN join, dissenting is omitted].