Cite as: 519 U. S. 278 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
though this central assumption has more often than not itself remained dormant in this Court's opinions on state discrimination subject to review under the dormant Commerce Clause, when the allegedly competing entities provide different products, as here, there is a threshold question whether the companies are indeed similarly situated for constitutional purposes. This is so for the simple reason that the difference in products may mean that the different entities serve different markets, and would continue to do so even if the supposedly discriminatory burden were removed. If in fact that should be the case, eliminating the tax or other regulatory differential would not serve the dormant Commerce Clause's fundamental objective of preserving a national market for competition undisturbed by preferential advantages conferred by a State upon its residents or resident competitors. In Justice Jackson's now-famous words:
"Our system, fostered by the Commerce Clause, is that every farmer and every craftsman shall be encouraged to produce by the certainty that he will have free access to every market in the Nation, that no home embargoes will withhold his exports, and no foreign state will by customs duties or regulations exclude them. Likewise, every consumer may look to the free competition from every producing area in the Nation to protect
Commerce Clause cases also have invalidated statutes that may adversely affect interstate commerce by subjecting activities to inconsistent regulations"); L. Brilmayer, Conflict of Laws § 3.2.3, pp. 144-148 (2d ed. 1995) (discussing Court's review of conflicting state laws under the dormant Commerce Clause). In the realm of taxation, the requirement of apportionment plays a similar role by assuring that interstate activities are not unjustly burdened by multistate taxation. See generally Oklahoma Tax Comm'n v. Jefferson Lines, Inc., 514 U. S. 175, 184-185 (1995) (discussing "internal" and "external" consistency tests for apportionment of state taxes). Of course, the fact that Ohio exempts local utilities from its sales and use taxes could not support any claim of undue burden in this nondiscriminatory sense, since the exemption itself does not give rise to conflicting regulation of any transaction or result in malapportionment of any tax.
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