Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/13-271_j4ek.pdf
Page Number: 30

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

9 

SCALIA, J., dissenting 

671.  So  the  Act  does  not  preempt  state  employment  dis-
crimination or labor laws.  But the Commission does have 
power to consider, say, “conservation, environmental, and 
antitrust  questions.”  Id.,  at  670,  n. 6  (emphasis  added). 
So the Act does preempt state antitrust laws. 

C 
At  bottom,  the  Court’s  decision  turns  on  its  perception
that  the  Natural  Gas  Act  “ ‘was  drawn  with  meticulous 
regard for the continued exercise of state power.’ ”  Ante, at 
10.  No doubt the Act protects state authority in a variety 
of ways.  It gives the Commission authority over only some
parts of the gas trade.  §717(b).  It establishes procedures
under  which  the  Commission  may  consult,  collaborate, or 
share  information  with  States.  §717p.  It  even  provides
that  the  Commission  may  regulate  practices  affecting 
wholesale rates “upon its own motion or upon complaint of 
any  State.”  §717d(a)  (emphasis  added).    It  should  have 
gone  without  saying,  however,  that  no  law  pursues  its 
purposes  at  all  costs.  Nothing  in  the  Act  and  nothing  in 
our cases suggests that Congress protected state power in 
the  way  imagined  by  today’s  decision:  by  licensing  state
sorties  into  the  Commission’s  domain  whenever  judges 
conclude that an incursion would not be too disruptive.

The  Court’s  preoccupation  with  the  purpose  of  preserv-
ing state authority is all the more inexpiable because that 
is not the Act’s only purpose.  The Act also has competing 
purposes, the most important of  which is promoting “uni-
formity  of  regulation.”    Northern  Natural,  supra,  at  91. 
The Court’s decision impairs that objective.  Before today,
interstate  pipelines  knew  that  their  practices  relating  to
price  indices  had  to  comply  with  one  set  of  regulations 
promulgated by the Commission.  From now on, however, 
pipelines will have to ensure that their behavior conforms 
to  the  discordant  regulations  of  50  States—or  more  accu-
rately, to the discordant verdicts of untold state antitrust