Cite as: 520 U. S. 564 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
a profit-making entity, the discriminatory tax exemption would be impermissible.
V
The unresolved question presented by this case is whether a different rule should apply to tax exemptions for charitable and benevolent institutions. Though we have never had cause to address the issue directly, the applicability of the dormant Commerce Clause to the nonprofit sector of the economy follows from our prior decisions.
Our cases have frequently applied laws regulating commerce to not-for-profit institutions. In Associated Press v. NLRB, 301 U. S. 103 (1937), for example, we held the National Labor Relations Act as applied to the Associated Press' (A. P.'s) newsgathering activities to be an enactment entirely within Congress' Commerce Clause power, despite the fact that the A. P. "does not sell news and does not operate for a profit." Id., at 129. Noting that the A. P.'s activities "involve[d] the constant use of channels of interstate and foreign communication," we concluded that its operations "amount[ed] to commercial intercourse, and such intercourse is commerce within the meaning of the Constitution." Id.,
against interstate trade.' " Chemical Waste, 504 U. S., at 343, n. 5 (quoting Philadelphia v. New Jersey, 437 U. S., at 624 (emphasis added)). Because the Maine statute is facially discriminatory, the more deferential standard is inapplicable. Contrary to Justice Scalia's suggestion, this case is quite unlike General Motors Corp. v. Tracy, 519 U. S. 278 (1997). There, the Court premised its holding that the statute at issue was not facially discriminatory on the view that sellers of "bundled" and "unbundled" natural gas were principally competing in different markets. See id., at 297-298, 300 ("dormant Commerce Clause protects markets and participants in markets, not taxpayers as such"). While it may be true that "[d]isparate treatment constitutes discrimination only if the objects of the disparate treatment are . . . similarly situated," post, at 601, there is no question that the statute at issue here is facially discriminatory because it disparately treats identically situated Maine nonprofit camps depending upon whether they favor in-state, as opposed to out-of-state, campers.
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