Cite as: 519 U. S. 278 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
On similar facts, we held in Bacchus Imports, Ltd. v. Dias, 468 U. S. 263 (1984), that in-state liquor wholesalers had standing to raise a Commerce Clause challenge to a Hawaii tax regime exempting certain alcohols produced in-state from liquor taxes. Although the wholesalers were not among the class of out-of-state liquor producers allegedly burdened by Hawaii's law, we reasoned that the wholesalers suffered economic injury both because they were directly liable for the tax and because the tax raised the price of their imported goods relative to the exempted in-state beverages. Id., at 267; see also Fulton Corp. v. Faulkner, 516 U. S. 325 (1996) (in-state stockholder challenged tax regime imposing higher taxes on stock from issuers with out-of-state operations than on stock from purely in-state issuers); West Lynn Creamery, Inc. v. Healy, 512 U. S. 186 (1994) (in-state milk dealers challenged tax and subsidy scheme discriminating against out-of-state milk producers). Bacchus applies with equal force here, and GMC "plainly ha[s] standing to challenge the tax in this Court," Bacchus Imports v. Dias, supra, at 267. We therefore turn to the merits.
III
A
The negative or dormant implication of the Commerce Clause prohibits state taxation, see, e. g., Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, 504 U. S. 298, 312-313 (1992), or regulation, see, e. g., Brown-Forman Distillers Corp. v. New York State Liquor Authority, 476 U. S. 573, 578-579 (1986), that discriminates against or unduly burdens interstate commerce and thereby "imped[es] free private trade in the national marketplace," Reeves, Inc. v. Stake, 447 U. S. 429, 437 (1980). GMC claims that Ohio's differential tax treatment of natural gas sales by marketers and regulated local utilities constitutes "facial" or "patent" discrimination in violation of the Commerce Clause, and it argues that differences in the nature of the businesses of LDC's and interstate marketers
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