Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
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529US3

Unit: $U54

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Cite as: 529 U. S. 598 (2000)

657

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 restau-
rants); Lopez, supra, at 559 (recognizing congressional power
to aggregate, hence forbid, noneconomically motivated dis-
crimination at public accommodations); ante, at 610 (same).
And it would permit Congress to regulate where that regu-
lation is “an essential part of a larger regulation of eco-
nomic 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 Con-
gress 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 emana-
tions through indirect environmental change cause identical,
severe commercial harm outside a State, why should it mat-
ter 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 commer-
cial effects, not the local nature of the cause, are constitution-
ally 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