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18 

NATIONAL PORK PRODUCERS COUNCIL v. ROSS 

Opinion of the Court 
Opinion of GORSUCH, J. 

Pike’s heartland.  That is not an auspicious start. 

B 
Matters do not improve from there.  While Pike has tra-
ditionally served as another way to test for purposeful dis-
crimination  against  out-of-state  economic  interests,  and 
while some of our cases associated with that line have ex-
pressed special concern with certain state regulation of the
instrumentalities of interstate transportation, see n. 2, su-
pra, petitioners would have us retool Pike for a much more 
ambitious project.  They urge us to read Pike as authorizing
judges  to  strike  down  duly  enacted  state  laws  regulating
the  in-state  sale  of  ordinary  consumer  goods  (like  pork)
based  on  nothing  more  than  their  own  assessment  of  the 
relevant law’s “costs” and “benefits.” 

That we can hardly do.  Whatever other judicial authori-
ties  the  Commerce  Clause  may  imply,  that  kind  of  free-
wheeling  power  is  not  among  them.    Petitioners  point  to 
nothing in the Constitution’s text or history that supports
such  a  project.    And  our  cases  have  expressly  cautioned 
against judges using the dormant Commerce Clause as “a
roving license for federal courts to decide what activities are 
appropriate for state and local government to undertake.” 
United Haulers, 550 U. S., at 343.  While “[t]here was a time
when this Court presumed to make such binding judgments
for society, under the guise of interpreting the Due Process 
Clause,” we have long refused pleas like petitioners’ “to re-
claim that ground” in the name of the dormant Commerce 
Clause.  Id., at 347. 

Not  only  is  the  task  petitioners  propose  one  the  Com-
merce Clause does not authorize judges to undertake.  This 
Court has also recognized that judges often are “not insti-
tutionally  suited  to  draw  reliable  conclusions  of  the  kind 

—————— 
Exxon Corp. v. Governor of Maryland, 437 U. S. 117, 128 (1978) (empha-
sis  added).    Nothing  like  that  exists  here.  We  do  not  face  a  law  that 
impedes the flow of commerce.  Pigs are not trucks or trains.