Northwest Airlines, Inc. v. County of Kent, 510 U.S. 355, 25 (1994)

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Cite as: 510 U. S. 355 (1994)

Thomas, J., dissenting

be understood to displace the dormant Commerce Clause or to exempt user fees on aircraft operators per se from § 1513(a). In short, § 1513(b) merely clarifies that fees, taxes, and other charges not encompassed within § 1513(a) may be imposed if consistent with our dormant Commerce Clause jurisprudence.2

II

The considerable difficulty the Court has in finding content for the term "reasonable" should signal that Congress did not intend the Act to impose a comprehensive new regulation on airport fees. As the Court admits, the Act itself sets no standards for reasonableness. Ante, at 366. Finding no other source for a definition, the Court uses Evansville as its test of reasonableness, apparently for want of anything better. See ante, at 367-368. The Court seems to recognize that this is not a perfect fit (but "will suffice for the purpose at hand," ante, at 368), and with good reason. Reasonableness was only one of several factors considered in Evansville; nondiscrimination against interstate commerce is a separate concern and is of at least equal importance. See 405 U. S., at 716-717. Moreover, as the Court acknowledges, Congress enacted the Act precisely because it found the result in Evansville "unsatisfactory." Ante, at 368.

Nevertheless, the Court reads the Evansville standard into the statute for no reason other than that the parties invite us to do so and that this Court (after enactment of the AHTA) occasionally has applied Evansville to test reasonableness in other contexts. Ante, at 367-368. That the parties agree on a standard, however, does not mean that it is the correct one. Moreover, it seems somewhat odd to import into the Act the very standard that created the problem Congress ostensibly intended the Act to "correct." Indeed, read as the Court construes it, the Act would fail to prohibit

2 Other statutory restrictions might also apply to the fees at issue here, see, e. g., 49 U. S. C. App. § 2210, but their applicability is not before us.

379

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