Slip Op. 02-138



### UNIT ED ST ATES COURT OF INT ERNAT IONALTRADE

_________________________________ : CF IN DU ST RIE S, IN C. : : Plaintiff, : : v. : Court No. 02-00281 : UNITED STA TES, : : De fend ant. : :

________________________________ : [Harb or M aintenance Tax o n dom estic shipmen ts is not uncon stitutional under Th e Port Pre fere nce or U nifo rmit y Clau ses.] Dated: November 26, 2002 McKenna Long & Aldri dge L.L. P. ( Peter Buck Fel ler and Daniel G. Jarcho ) for plaintiff. Rob ert D. M cCallum , Jr. , As sista nt A ttorn ey G ene ral, David M. Cohen , Director, Commercial Litigati on Branch, Civi l Divis ion, Unit ed State s Department of Justi ce ( Jeanne E. Davids on , Todd M. Hughes , and Jeffr ey A. B elkin ), Richard McManus Office of General Counsel , Unite d States Customs Servi ce, of couns el, for defendant

. OPI NIO N RESTANI , Judge: This action seek ing ref

und s of H arbo r M ainten ance Tax es (“H M T”) o n do mes tic shipments is befor e the court on defendant ’s USCIT Rule 12(b)(5) motion t o dismis s and plaintiff ’s Ru le 56 m otion for sum mary jud gm ent.C OURT N O . 02-00281 P AGE 2

Plaintiff CF Indust

ries is a Fl orida manufact urer of fer

til izer. Plaintiff’s ferti lize r is shipped to Davant, Louisiana where it i s placed on river barges. Shipments loade d or unloaded at

Davant, Louis iana ar e subject to HMT. Plainti ff paid such taxes. Ther e is no disp ute th at pla intiff’s s uit is tim ely an d th at the cou rt ha s juri sdic tion und er 2 8 U .S.C . § 1581(i). The issues o f law befo re the c ourt ar e no d iffere nt than those prese nted in previous ly

concluded suits by

importer s. Accordi ngly , for t he reasons stat ed in Thomson Multimedia, Inc. v. United Stat es , 219 F. Su pp. 2d 13 22 (Ct. Int’l Trad e 2002 ), the court grants defe ndant’s m otion to dismiss for failure to state a claim a nd den ies plaintiff’s motion for summ ary judgmen t. There is no sign ificant argum ent raised by plaintiff here that w as n ot co nsid ered by the cou rt in th at ca se. The court not es speci fical ly that its re lianc e on United Stat es v. Pt asynski , 462 U.S . 74 (1 983 ), in find ing n o vio lation o f the P ort Pre feren ce C lause a nd U niform ity Clause of the Constit

ution ( U.S. Const. art. I, § 9, cl. 6 and §8, cl . 1) i s not under mined by plaintiff’s atte mpt to di sti nguish that case here. The fa ct that the Unit ed State s advise d the Supreme Court

in it s brie fs that

no windfall profit s would accrue to certa in Alaskan oil producers and thus, t he tax exemption could have been acc omplished in other ways, does not al ter t

he fact t hat the tax exempti on was defined i n geographic terms. The holding of Ptasy

nski is not

as narr ow as plaintiff cont ends. Furthermore, the fact remains that, but for t

he applicable HM T exemp tion, t he HM T wo uld discriminate agai nstC OURT N O . 02-00281 P AGE 3

domestic s hipments t o and from Alaska and Hawaii, two stat es which are not contiguous to the other forty -eight states. When drafting these clauses to address specifi c problems, the foundi ng father s knew nothing of t his uni que geographi c expansion of the Unite d States and cannot be s aid to have inte nded to prohibit t he remedialmeasures chal lenged here. In practic al term s, the ex emp tions h elp to a void prefe rence s and prom ote

un ifo rm ity. Judgment w ill be enter ed for the United States.

__________________________ Jane A. Restani JUDGE Dated: New York, New York. This 26th day

of November, 2002.