NPPC v. Ross

by Supreme Court of the United States

Note: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Syllabus

NATIONAL PORK PRODUCERS COUNCIL ET AL. v. ROSS, SECRETARY OF THE CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF FOOD AND AGRICULTURE, ET AL.
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
No. 21–468. Argued October 11, 2022—Decided May 11, 2023

This case involves a challenge to a California law known as Proposition 12, which as relevant here forbids the in-state sale of whole pork meat that comes from breeding pigs (or their immediate offspring) that are “confined in a cruel manner.” Cal. Health & Safety Code Ann. §25990(b)(2). Confinement is “cruel” if it prevents a pig from “lying down, standing up, fully extending [its] limbs, or turning around freely.” §25991(e)(1). Prior to the vote on Proposition 12, proponents suggested the law would benefit animal welfare and consumer health, and opponents claimed that existing farming practices did better than Proposition 12 protecting animal welfare (for example, by preventing pig-on-pig aggression) and ensuring consumer health (by avoiding contamination). Shortly after Proposition 12’s adoption, two organizations—the National Pork Producers Council and the American Farm Bureau Federation (petitioners)—filed this lawsuit on behalf of their members who raise and process pigs alleging that Proposition 12 violates the U. S. Constitution by impermissibly burdening interstate commerce. Petitioners estimated that the cost of compliance with Proposition 12 will increase production costs and will fall on both California and out-of-state producers. But because California imports almost all the pork it consumes, most of Proposition 12’s compliance costs will be borne by out-of-state firms. The district court held that petitioners’ complaint failed to state a claim as a matter of law and dismissed the case. The Ninth Circuit affirmed.

Held: The judgment of the Ninth Circuit is affirmed.

6 F. 4th 1021, affirmed.

Justice Gorsuch delivered the opinion of the Court, except as to Parts IV–B, IV–C, and IV–D, rejecting petitioners’ theories that would place Proposition 12 in violation of the dormant Commerce Clause even though petitioners do not allege the law purposefully discriminates against out-of-state economic interests. Pp 5–17, 27–29.

(a) The Constitution vests Congress with the power to “regulate Commerce … among the several States.” Art. I, §8, cl. 3. Although Congress may seek to exercise this power to regulate the interstate trade of pork, and many pork producers have urged Congress to do so, Congress has yet to adopt any statute that might displace Proposition 12 or laws regulating pork production in other States. Petitioners’ litigation theory thus rests on the dormant Commerce Clause theory, pursuant to which the Commerce Clause not only vests Congress with the power to regulate interstate trade, but also “contain[s] a further, negative command,” one effectively forbidding the enforcement of “certain state [economic regulations] even when Congress has failed to legislate on the subject.” Oklahoma Tax Comm’n v. Jefferson Lines, Inc., 514 U. S. 175, 179. This Court has held that state laws offend this dormant aspect of the Commerce Clause when they seek to “build up … domestic commerce” through “burdens upon the industry and business of other States.” Guy v. Baltimore, 100 U. S. 434, 443. At the same time, though, the Court has reiterated that, absent purposeful discrimination, “a State may exclude from its territory, or prohibit the sale therein of any articles which, in its judgment, fairly exercised, are prejudicial to” the interests of its citizens. Ibid.

The antidiscrimination principle lies at the “very core” of the Court’s dormant Commerce Clause jurisprudence. Camps Newfound/Owatonna, Inc. v. Town of Harrison, 520 U. S. 564, 581. This Court has said that the Commerce Clause prohibits the enforcement of state laws “driven by … ‘economic protectionism—that is, regulatory measures designed to benefit in-state economic interests by burdening out-of-state competitors.’ ” Department of Revenue of Ky. v. Davis, 553 U. S. 328, 337–338 (quoting New Energy Co. of Ind. v. Limbach, 486 U. S. 269, 273–274). Petitioners here disavow any discrimination-based claim, conceding that Proposition 12 imposes the same burdens on in-state pork producers that it imposes on out-of-state pork producers. Pp 5–8.

(b) Given petitioners’ concession that Proposition 12 does not implicate the antidiscrimination principle, petitioners first invoke what they call the “extraterritoriality doctrine.” They contend that the Court’s dormant Commerce Clause cases suggest an additional and “almost per se” rule forbidding enforcement of state laws that have the “practical effect of controlling commerce outside the State,” even when those laws do not purposely discriminate against out-of-state interests. Petitioners further insist that Proposition 12 offends this “almost per se” rule because the law will impose substantial new costs on out-of-state pork producers who wish to sell their products in California. Petitioners contend the rule they propose follows ineluctably from three cases: Healy v. Beer Institute, 491 U. S. 324; Brown-Forman Distillers Corp. v. New York State Liquor Authority, 476 U. S. 573; and Baldwin v. G. A. F. Seelig, Inc., 294 U. S. 511. But a close look at those cases reveals that each typifies the familiar concern with preventing purposeful discrimination against out-of-state economic interests. In Baldwin, a New York law that barred out-of-state dairy farmers from selling their milk in the State for less than the minimum price New York law guaranteed in-state producers “plainly discriminate[d]” against out-of-staters by “erecting an economic barrier protecting a major local industry against competition from without the State.” Dean Milk Co. v. Madison, 340 U. S. 349, 354 (discussing Baldwin). In Brown-Forman, a New York law that required liquor distillers to affirm that their in-state prices were no higher than their out-of-state prices impermissibly sought to force out-of-state distillers to “surrender” whatever cost advantages they enjoyed against their in-state rivals, which amounted to economic protectionism. 476 U. S., at 580.

The Court reached a similar conclusion in Healy, which involved a Connecticut law that required out-of-state beer merchants to affirm that their in-state prices were no higher than those they charged in neighboring States. 491 U. S., at 328–330. As the Court later explained, “[t]he essential vice in laws” like Connecticut’s is that they “hoard” commerce “for the benefit of” in-state merchants and discourage consumers from crossing state lines to make their purchases from nearby out-of-state vendors. C & A Carbone, Inc. v. Clarkstown, 511 U. S. 383, 391–392.

Petitioners insist that Baldwin, Brown-Forman, and Healy taken together suggest an “almost per se” rule against state laws with “extraterritorial effects.” While petitioners point to language in these cases pertaining to the “practical effect” of the challenged laws on out-of-state commerce and prices, “the language of an opinion is not always to be parsed as though we were dealing with language of a statute.” Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., 442 U. S. 330, 341. The language highlighted by petitioners in Baldwin, Brown-Forman, and Healy appeared in a particular context and did particular work. A close look at those cases reveals nothing like the “almost per se” rule against laws that have the “practical effect” of “controlling” extraterritorial commerce that petitioners posit, and indeed petitioners’ reading would cast a shadow over laws long understood to represent valid exercises of the States’ constitutionally reserved powers. Baldwin, Brown-Forman, and Healy did not mean to do so much. In rejecting petitioners’ “almost per se” theory the Court does not mean to trivialize the role territory and sovereign boundaries play in the federal system; the Constitution takes great care to provide rules for fixing and changing state borders. Art. IV, §3, cl. 1. Courts must sometimes referee disputes about where one State’s authority ends and another’s begins—both inside and outside the commercial context. Indeed, the antidiscrimination principle found in the Court’s dormant Commerce Clause cases may well represent one more effort to mediate competing claims of sovereign authority under our horizontal separation of powers. But none of this means, as petitioners suppose, that any question about the ability of a State to project its power extraterritorially must yield to an “almost per se” rule under the dormant Commerce Clause. This Court has never before claimed so much “ground for judicial supremacy under the banner of the dormant Commerce Clause.” United Haulers Assn., Inc. v. Oneida-Herkimer Solid Waste Management Authority, 550 U. S. 330, 346–347. Pp 8–14.

(c) Petitioners next point to Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc., 397 U. S. 137, which they assert requires a court to at least assess “ ‘the burden imposed on interstate commerce’ ” by a state law and prevent its enforcement if the law’s burdens are “ ‘clearly excessive in relation to the putative local benefits.’ ” Brief for Petitioners 44. Petitioners provide a litany of reasons why they believe the benefits Proposition 12 secures for Californians do not outweigh the costs it imposes on out-of-state economic interests.

Petitioners overstate the extent to which Pike and its progeny depart from the antidiscrimination rule that lies at the core of the Court’s dormant Commerce Clause jurisprudence. As this Court has previously explained, “no clear line” separates the Pike line of cases from core antidiscrimination precedents. General Motors Corp. v. Tracy, 519 U. S. 278, 298, n. 12. If some cases focus on whether a state law discriminates on its face, the Pike line serves as an important reminder that a law’s practical effects may also disclose the presence of a discriminatory purpose. Pike itself concerned an Arizona order requiring cantaloupes grown in state to be processed and packed in state. 397 U. S., at 138–140. The Court held that Arizona’s order violated the dormant Commerce Clause, stressing that even if that order could be fairly characterized as facially neutral, it “requir[ed] business operations to be performed in [state] that could more efficiently be performed elsewhere.” Id., at 145. The “practical effect[s]” of the order in operation thus revealed a discriminatory purpose—an effort to insulate in-state processing and packaging businesses from out-of-state competition. Id., at 140. While this Court has left the “courtroom door open” to challenges premised on “even nondiscriminatory burdens,” Davis, 553 U. S., at 353, and while “a small number of our cases have invalidated state laws … that appear to have been genuinely nondiscriminatory,” Tracy, 519 U. S., at 298, n. 12, petitioners’ claim about Proposition 12 falls well outside Pike’s heartland. Pp 15–18.

(d) The Framers equipped Congress with considerable power to regulate interstate commerce and preempt contrary state laws. See U. S. Const., Art. I, §8, cl. 3; Art. IV, §2. While this Court has inferred an additional judicially enforceable rule against certain state laws adopted even against the backdrop of congressional silence, the Court’s cases also suggest extreme caution is warranted in its exercise. Disavowing reliance on this Court’s core dormant Commerce Clause teachings focused on discriminatory state legislation, petitioners invite the Court to endorse new theories of implied judicial power. They would have the Court recognize an “almost per se” rule against the enforcement of state laws that have “extraterritorial effects”—even though it has long recognized that virtually all state laws create ripple effects beyond their borders. Alternatively, they would have the Court prevent a State from regulating the sale of an ordinary consumer good within its own borders on nondiscriminatory terms—even though the Pike line of cases they invoke has never before yielded such a result. Like the courts that faced this case below, this Court declines both incautious invitations. Pp 27–29.

Justice Gorsuch, joined by Justice Thomas and Justice Barrett, concluded in Part IV–B that, accepting petitioners’ allegations, the Pike balancing task that they propose in this case is one no court is equipped to undertake. Some out-of-state producers who choose to comply with Proposition 12 may incur new costs, while the law serves moral and health interests of some magnitude for in-state residents. In a functioning democracy, those sorts of policy choices—balancing competing, incommensurable goods—belong to the people and their elected representatives. Pp 18–21.

Justice Gorsuch, joined by Justice Thomas, Justice Sotomayor, and Justice Kagan, concluded in Part IV–C that the allegations in the complaint were insufficient as a matter of law to demonstrate a substantial burden on interstate commerce, a showing Pike requires before a court may assess the law’s competing benefits or weigh the two sides against each other, and that the facts pleaded merely allege harm to some producers’ favored “methods of operation” which the Court found insufficient to state a claim in Exxon Corp. v. Governor of Maryland, 437 U. S. 117, 127. Pp 21–25.

Justice Gorsuch, joined by Justice Thomas and Justice Barrett, concluded in Part IV–D that petitioners have not asked the Court to treat putative harms to out-of-state animal welfare or other noneconomic interests as freestanding harms cognizable under the dormant Commerce Clause, and in any event that the Court’s decisions authorizing claims alleging “burdens on commerce,” Davis, 553 U. S., at 353, do not provide judges “a roving license” to reassess the wisdom of state legislation in light of any conceivable out-of-state interest, economic or otherwise. United Haulers, 550 U. S., at 343. Pp 25–27.

Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justice Kagan, concluded that the judgment should be affirmed, not because courts are incapable of balancing economic burdens against noneconomic benefits as Pike requires or because of any other fundamental reworking of that doctrine, but because petitioners fail to plausibly allege a substantial burden on interstate commerce as required by Pike. Pp 1–3.

Justice Barrett concluded that the judgment should be affirmed because Pike balancing requires both the benefits and burdens of a State law to be judicially cognizable and comparable, see Department of Revenue of Ky. v. Davis, 553 U. S. 328, 354–355, but the benefits and burdens of Proposition 12 are incommensurable; that said, the complaint plausibly alleges a substantial burden on interstate commerce because Proposition 12’s costs are pervasive, burdensome, and will be felt primarily (but not exclusively) outside California. Pp 1–2.

Gorsuch, J., announced the judgment of the Court, and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II, III, IV–A, and V, in which Thomas, Sotomayor, Kagan, and Barrett, JJ., joined, an opinion with respect to Parts IV–B and IV–D, in which Thomas and Barrett, JJ., joined, and an opinion with respect to Part IV–C, in which Thomas, Sotomayor, and Kagan, JJ., joined. Sotomayor, J., filed an opinion concurring in part, in which Kagan, J., joined. Barrett, J., filed an opinion concurring in part. Roberts, C. J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which Alito, Kavanaugh, and Jackson, JJ., joined. Kavanaugh, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.

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