Cite as: 529 U. S. 598 (2000)
Breyer, J., dissenting
at economic establishments. See Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U. S. 241 (1964) (upholding civil rights laws forbidding discrimination at local motels); Katz-enbach v. McClung, 379 U. S. 294 (1964) (same for restaurants); Lopez, supra, at 559 (recognizing congressional power to aggregate, hence forbid, noneconomically motivated discrimination at public accommodations); ante, at 610 (same). And it would permit Congress to regulate where that regulation is "an essential part of a larger regulation of economic activity, in which the regulatory scheme could be undercut unless the intrastate activity were regulated." Lopez, supra, at 561; cf. Controlled Substances Act, 21 U. S. C. § 801 et seq. (regulating drugs produced for home consumption). Given the former exception, can Congress simply rewrite the present law and limit its application to restaurants, hotels, perhaps universities, and other places of public accommodation? Given the latter exception, can Congress save the present law by including it, or much of it, in a broader "Safe Transport" or "Workplace Safety" act?
More important, why should we give critical constitutional importance to the economic, or noneconomic, nature of an interstate-commerce-affecting cause? If chemical emanations through indirect environmental change cause identical, severe commercial harm outside a State, why should it matter whether local factories or home fireplaces release them? The Constitution itself refers only to Congress' power to "regulate Commerce . . . among the several States," and to make laws "necessary and proper" to implement that power. Art. I, § 8, cls. 3, 18. The language says nothing about either the local nature, or the economic nature, of an interstate-commerce-affecting cause.
This Court has long held that only the interstate commercial effects, not the local nature of the cause, are constitutionally relevant. See NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U. S. 1, 38-39 (1937) (focusing upon interstate effects); Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U. S. 111, 125 (1942) (aggregating
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