104
Opinion of the Court
Although it is often no mean feat to determine whether a challenged tax is a compensatory tax, we have little difficulty concluding that the Oregon surcharge is not such a tax. Oregon does not impose a specific charge of at least $2.25 per ton on shippers of waste generated in Oregon, for which the out-of-state surcharge might be considered compensatory. In fact, the only analogous charge on the disposal of Oregon waste is $0.85 per ton, approximately one-third of the amount imposed on waste from other States. See Ore. Rev. Stat. §§ 459A.110(5), 459A.115 (1991). Respondents' failure to identify a specific charge on intrastate commerce equal to or exceeding the surcharge is fatal to their claim. See Maryland, 451 U. S., at 758.
Respondents argue that, despite the absence of a specific $2.25 per ton charge on in-state waste, intrastate commerce does pay its share of the costs underlying the surcharge through general taxation.7 Whether or not that is true is difficult to determine, as "[general] tax payments are received for the general purposes of the [government], and are, upon proper receipt, lost in the general revenues." Flast v. Cohen, 392 U. S. 83, 128 (1968) (Harlan, J., dissenting). Even assuming, however, that various other means of general taxation, such as income taxes, could serve as an identifiable intrastate burden roughly equivalent to the out-of-state surcharge, respondents' compensatory tax argument fails because the in-state and out-of-state levies are not imposed on substantially equivalent events.
ertheless, even if the surcharge could somehow be viewed as a user fee, it could not be sustained as such, given that it discriminates against interstate commerce. See Evansville, supra, at 717; Guy v. Baltimore, 100 U. S. 434 (1880). Cf. Northwest Airlines, Inc. v. County of Kent, 510 U. S. 355, 369 (1994) (A user fee is valid only to the extent it "does not discriminate against interstate commerce").
7 We would note that respondents, like the dissent, post, at 112, ignore the fact that shippers of waste from other States in all likelihood pay income taxes in other States, a portion of which might well be used to pay for waste reduction activities in those States.
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