304
Opinion of the Court
ties alone operate? Although there is no a priori answer, a number of reasons support a decision to give the greater weight to the captive market and the local utilities' singular role in serving it, and hence to treat marketers and LDC's as dissimilar for present purposes. First and most important, we must recognize an obligation to proceed cautiously lest we imperil the delivery by regulated LDC's of bundled gas to the noncompetitive captive market. Second, as a Court we lack the expertness and the institutional resources necessary to predict the effects of judicial intervention invalidating Ohio's tax scheme on the utilities' capacity to serve this captive market. Finally, should intervention by the National Government be necessary, Congress has both the resources and the power to strike the balance between the needs of the competitive and captive markets.
1
Where a choice is possible, as it is here, the importance of traditional regulated service to the captive market makes a powerful case against any judicial treatment that might jeopardize LDCs' continuing capacity to serve the captive market. Largely as a response to the monopolistic shakeout that brought an end to the era of unbridled competition among gas utilities, regulation of natural gas for the principal benefit of householders and other consumers of relatively small quantities is the rule in every State in the Union. Congress has also long recognized the desirability of these state regulatory regimes. Supra, at 291-293. Indeed, half a century ago we concluded that the NGA altogether exempts state regulation of retail sales of natural gas (including in-state sales to large industrial customers) from the strictures of the dormant Commerce Clause, see Panhandle Eastern Pipe Line Co. v. Public Serv. Comm'n of Ind., 332 U. S. 507 (1947), and to this day, notwithstanding the national regulatory revolution, Congress has done nothing to limit its unbroken recognition of the state regulatory authority that
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