Cite as: 511 U. S. 383 (1994)
Souter, J., dissenting
ing laws 5 as classic examples of the economic protectionism the dormant Commerce Clause jurisprudence aims to prevent. In the words of one commentator summarizing our case law, it is laws "adopted for the purpose of improving the competitive position of local economic actors, just because they are local, vis-à-vis their foreign competitors" that offend the Commerce Clause. Regan, The Supreme Court and State Protectionism: Making Sense of the Dormant Commerce Clause, 84 Mich. L. Rev. 1091, 1138 (1986). The Commerce Clause does not otherwise protect access to local markets. Id., at 1128.6
5 See South-Central Timber Development, Inc. v. Wunnicke, 467 U. S. 82, 92 (1984) (quoting South Carolina Highway Dept. v. Barnwell Brothers, Inc., 303 U. S. 177, 185, n. 2 (1938)) (danger lies in regulation whose " 'burden falls principally upon those without the state' "); Dean Milk Co. v. Madison, 340 U. S. 349, 354 (1951) (in "erecting an economic barrier protecting a major local industry against competition from without the State, Madison plainly discriminates against interstate commerce. This it cannot do . . ."); Foster-Fountain Packing Co. v. Haydel, 278 U. S. 1, 13 (1928) (statute unconstitutional because it "favor[s] the canning of the meat and the manufacture of bran in Louisiana" instead of Biloxi); Minnesota v. Barber, 136 U. S. 313, 323 (1890) (statute infirm because its necessary result is "discrimination against the products and business of other States in favor of the products and business of Minnesota"). See also Fort Gratiot Sanitary Landfill, Inc. v. Michigan Dept. of Natural Resources, 504 U. S. 353, 361 (1992) (statute infirm because it protects "local waste producers . . . from competition from out-of-state waste producers who seek to use local waste disposal areas"); Philadelphia v. New Jersey, 437 U. S. 617, 626-627 (1978) (New Jersey "may not . . . discriminat[e] against articles of commerce coming from outside the State unless there is some reason, apart from their origin, to treat them differently").
6 See also Smith, State Discriminations Against Interstate Commerce, 74 Calif. L. Rev. 1203, 1204, 1213 (1986) ("The nub of the matter is that discriminatory regulations are almost invariably invalid, whereas nondiscriminatory regulations are much more likely to survive"; "[a] regulation is discriminatory if it imposes greater economic burdens on those outside the state, to the economic advantage of those within"); L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law 417 (2d ed. 1988) ("[T]he negative implications of the commerce clause derive principally from a political theory of union, not
417
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