Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/13-271_j4ek.pdf
Page Number: 26

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

5 

SCALIA, J., dissenting 

“background” practices affecting such rates.  It grants both
powers in the same clause: “Whenever the Commission . . .
find[s] that a [wholesale] rate, charge, or classification . . .
[or]  any  rule,  regulation,  practice,  or  contract  affecting
such rate, charge, or classification is unjust [or] unreason-
able,  . . .  the  Commission  shall  determine  the  just  and 
reasonable  rate,  charge,  classification,  rule,  regulation, 
practice,  or  contract  to  be  thereafter  observed.”    §717d(a)
(emphasis added).  Nothing in this provision, and for that 
matter nothing in the Act, suggests that federal authority
over  practices  is  a  second-class  power,  somehow  less  ex-
clusive than the authority over rates. 

The  Court  persists  that  the  background  conditions  in 
this  case  affect  both  wholesale  and  retail  sales.    Ante,  at 
15.  This observation adds atmosphere, but nothing more.
The  Court  concedes  that  index  manipulation’s  dual  effect 
does  not  weaken  the  Commission’s  power  to  regulate  it. 
Ante,  at  10.  So  too  should  the  Court  have  seen  that  this 
simultaneous  effect  does  not  strengthen  the  claims  of  the
States.  It is not at all unusual for an activity controlled by
the Commission to have effects in the States’ field; produc-
tion,  wholesale,  and  retail  are  after  all  interdependent
stages of a single trade.  We have never suggested that the 
rules  of  field  preemption  change  in  such  situations.    For 
example, producers’ ability to pass production taxes on to
pipelines  no  doubt  affects  both  producers  and  pipelines. 
Yet we had no trouble concluding that a state law restrict-
ing  producers’  ability  to  pass  these  taxes  impermissibly 
attempted  to  manage  “a  matter  within  the  sphere  of 
FERC’s regulatory authority.”  Exxon, supra, at 185–186. 

The  Court’s  approach  makes  a  snarl  of  our  precedents. 
In Northern Natural, the Court held that the Act preempts
state  regulations  requiring  pipelines  to  buy  gas  ratably 
from gas wells.  372 U. S., at 90.  The regulations in that 
case  shared  each  of  the  principal  features  emphasized  by 
the  Court  today.  They  governed  background  market