Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-468_5if6.pdf
Page Number: 42

2 

NATIONAL PORK PRODUCERS COUNCIL v. ROSS 

Opinion of ROBERTS, C. J. 

The  Ninth  Circuit  misapplied  our  existing  Pike  jurispru-
dence  in  evaluating  petitioners’  allegations.  I  would  find 
that petitioners’ have plausibly alleged a substantial bur-
den against interstate commerce, and would therefore va-
cate the judgment and remand the case for the court below 
to  decide  whether  petitioners  have  stated  a  claim  under 
Pike. 

I 
The Ninth Circuit stated that “[w]hile the dormant Com-
merce Clause is not yet a dead letter, it is moving in that
direction.”  6  F. 4th  1021,  1033  (2021).    Today’s  majority 
does not pull the plug.  For good reason: Although Pike is 
susceptible  to  misapplication  as  a  freewheeling  judicial 
weighing of benefits and burdens, it also reflects the basic
concern of our Commerce Clause jurisprudence that there 
be “free private trade in the national marketplace.”  General 
Motors  Corp.  v.  Tracy,  519  U. S.  278,  287  (1997)  (quoting 
Reeves,  Inc.  v.  Stake,  447  U. S.  429,  437  (1980));  see  also 
Hunt v. Washington State Apple Advertising Comm’n, 432 
U. S.  333,  350  (1977)  (Pike  protects  “a  national  ‘common 
market’ ”).  “Our system, fostered by the Commerce Clause, 
is that every farmer and every craftsman shall be encour-
aged to produce by the certainty that he will have free ac-
cess to every market in the Nation, that no home embargoes 
will withhold his exports, and no foreign state will by cus-
toms  duties  or  regulations  exclude  them.”  H.  P.  Hood  & 
Sons, Inc. v. Du Mond, 336 U. S. 525, 539 (1949).

The majority’s discussion of our Pike jurisprudence high-
lights  two  types  of  cases:  those  involving  discriminatory
state laws and those implicating the “instrumentalities of 
interstate transportation.”  Ante, at 17, n. 2.  But Pike has 
not been so narrowly typecast.  As a majority of the Court
acknowledges, “we generally leave the courtroom door open 
to plaintiffs invoking the rule in Pike, that even nondiscrim-
inatory  burdens  on  commerce  may  be  struck  down  on  a