Cite as: 504 U. S. 353 (1992)
Opinion of the Court
jected to the same proscription as that moving in interstate commerce." Id., at 354, n. 4.
Nor does the fact that the Michigan statute allows individual counties to accept solid waste from out of state qualify its discriminatory character. In the New Jersey case the statute authorized a state agency to promulgate regulations permitting certain categories of waste to enter the State. See 437 U. S., at 618-619. The limited exception covered by those regulations—like the fact that several Michigan counties accept out-of-state waste—merely reduced the scope of the discrimination; for all categories of waste not excepted by the regulations, the discriminatory ban remained in place. Similarly, in this case St. Clair County's total ban on out-of-state waste is unaffected by the fact that some other counties have adopted a different policy.4
In short, neither the fact that the Michigan statute purports to regulate intercounty commerce in waste nor the fact that some Michigan counties accept out-of-state waste provides an adequate basis for distinguishing this case from Philadelphia v. New Jersey.
IV
Michigan and St. Clair County also argue that this case is different from Philadelphia v. New Jersey because the SWMA constitutes a comprehensive health and safety regulation rather than "economic protectionism" of the State's limited landfill capacity. Relying on an excerpt from our opinion in Sporhase v. Nebraska ex rel. Douglas, 458 U. S.
4 Cf. Wyoming v. Oklahoma, 502 U. S. 437, 455 (1992) (Oklahoma statute that "expressly reserves a segment of the Oklahoma coal market for Oklahoma-mined coal, to the exclusion of . . . other States," violates the Commerce Clause even though it "sets aside only a 'small portion' of the Oklahoma coal market . . . . The volume of commerce affected measures only the extent of the discrimination; it is of no relevance to the determination whether a State has discriminated against interstate commerce") (emphasis in original).
363
Page: Index Previous 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007