280
Syllabus
mant Commerce Clause purposes. A number of reasons support a decision to give the greater weight to the distinctiveness of the captive market and the LDCs' singular role in serving that market, and hence to treat marketers and LDC's as dissimilar for Commerce Clause purposes. Pp. 297-303. (c) First and most important, this Court has an obligation to proceed cautiously lest it imperil the LDCs' delivery of bundled gas to the noncompetitive captive market. Congress and the Court have recognized the importance of not jeopardizing service to this market. Pan-handle Eastern Pipe Line Co. v. Michigan Pub. Serv. Comm'n, supra. State regulation of gas sales to consumers serves important health and safety interests in fairly obvious ways, in that requirements of dependable supply and extended credit assure that individual domestic buyers are not frozen out of their houses in the cold months. The legitimate state pursuit of such interests is compatible with the Commerce Clause, Huron Portland Cement Co. v. Detroit, 362 U. S. 440, 443-444, and such a justification may be weighed in the process of deciding the threshold question addressed here. Second, the Court lacks the expertness and the institutional resources necessary to predict the economic effects of judicial intervention invalidating Ohio's tax scheme on the LDCs' capacity to serve the captive market. See, e. g., Fulton Corp. v. Faulkner, 516 U. S. 325, 341-342. Thus, the most the Court can say is that modification of Ohio's tax scheme could subject LDC's to economic pressure that in turn could threaten the preservation of an adequate customer base to support continued provision of bundled services to the captive market. Finally, should intervention by the National Government be necessary, Congress has both the power and the institutional competence to decide upon and effectuate any desirable changes in the scheme that has evolved. For a half century Congress has been aware of this Court's conclusion in Panhandle Eastern Pipe Line Co. v. Public Serv. Comm'n of Ind., 332 U. S. 507, that the Natural Gas Act of 1938 exempts state regulation of in-state retail gas sales from the dormant Commerce Clause, and since that decision has only reaffirmed the States' power in this regard. Pp. 303-310. (d) GMC's argument that Ohio's tax regime facially discriminates because the sales and use tax exemption would not apply to sales by out-of-state LDC's is rejected. Ohio courts might extend the challenged exemption to out-of-state utilities if confronted with the question, and this Court does not deem a hypothetical possibility of favoritism to constitute discrimination transgressing constitutional commands. Associated Industries of Mo. v. Lohman, 511 U. S. 641, 654. Pp. 310-311.
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