Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/13-271_j4ek.pdf
Page Number: 28

Cite as:  575 U. S. ____ (2015) 

7 

SCALIA, J., dissenting 

wholesales . . . , and those aimed at producers and produc-
tion”); Northwest Central, supra, at 512 (“[This regulation] 
is  directed  to  the  behavior  of  gas  producers”).   The  law-
suits  at  hand  target  pipelines  (entities  regulated  by  the
Commission)  for  their  manipulation  of  indices  (behavior 
regulated by the Commission).  That should have sufficed 
to establish preemption. 

B 

The Court also tallies several features of state antitrust 
law  that,  it  believes,  weigh  against  preemption.    Ante,  at 
13–14.  Once  again  the  Court  seems  to  have  forgotten  its
precedents.  We have said before that “ ‘Congress meant to
draw  a  bright  line  easily  ascertained,  between  state  and
federal jurisdiction’ ” over the gas trade.  Nantahala Power 
& Light Co. v. Thornburg, 476 U. S. 953, 966 (1986) (quot-
ing FPC v. Southern Cal. Edison Co., 376 U. S. 205, 215– 
216  (1964)).    Our  decisions  have  therefore  “ ‘squarely
rejected’ ”  the  theory,  endorsed  by  the  Court  today,  that
the  boundary  between  national  and  local  authority  turns 
on  “ ‘a  case-by-case  analysis  of  the impact  of  state  regula-
tion upon the national interest.’ ”  Ibid. 

State  antitrust  law,  the  Court  begins,  applies  to  “all
businesses in the marketplace” rather than  just “natural-
gas  companies  in  particular.”  Ante,  at  13.  So  what?  No 
principle  of  our  natural-gas  preemption  jurisprudence
distinguishes  particularized  state  laws  from  state  laws  of 
general applicability.  We have never suggested, for exam-
ple, that a State may use general price-gouging laws to fix 
wholesale  rates,  or  general  laws  about  unfair  trade  prac-
tices  to  control  wholesale  contracts,  or  general  common-
carrier laws to administer interstate pipelines.  The Court 
in  any  event  could  not  have  chosen  a  worse  setting  in
which  to  attempt  a  distinction  between  general  and  par-
ticular  laws.  Like  their  federal  counterpart,  state  anti-
trust laws tend to use the rule of reason to judge the law-