Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/13-271_j4ek.pdf
Page Number: 27

6 

ONEOK, INC. v. LEARJET, INC. 

SCALIA, J., dissenting 

conditions, not wholesale prices.  Id., at 90–91.  The back-
ground  conditions  in  question,  pipelines’  purchases  from
gas wells, affected both the federal field of wholesale sales 
and the state field of gas production.  Id., at  92–93.  And 
the  regulations  took  aim  at  the  purchases’  effects  on  pro-
duction;  they  sought  to  promote  conservation  of  natural 
resources  by  limiting  how  much  gas  pipelines  could  take
from  each  well.    Id.,  at  93.  No  matter;  the  Court  still 
concluded  that  the  regulations  “invade[d]  the  federal 
agency’s  exclusive  domain.”  Id.,  at  92.    The  factors  that 
made  no  difference  in  Northern  Natural  should  make  no  
difference today.

Contrast  Northern  Natural  with  Northwest  Central 
Pipeline  Corp.  v.  State  Corporation  Comm’n  of  Kan.,  489 
U. S.  493  (1989),  which  involved  state  regulations  that 
restricted  the  times  when  producers  could  take  gas  from
wells.  On  this  occasion  the  Court  upheld  the  regula-
tions—not  because  the  law  aimed  at  the  objective  of  gas
conservation,  but  because  the  State  pursued  this  end  by
regulating  “ ‘the  physical  ac[t]  of  drawing  gas  from  the 
earth.’ ”    Id.,  at  510.  Our  precedents  demand,  in  other
words, that the Court focus in the present case upon what 
the  State  seeks  to  regulate  (a  pipeline  practice  that  is
subject  to  regulation  by  the  Commission),  not  why  the 
State seeks to regulate it (to curb the practice’s effects on
retail rates).

Trying  to  turn  liabilities  into  assets,  the  Court  bran-
dishes  statements  from  Northern  Natural  and  Northwest 
Central  that  (in  its  view)  discuss  where  state  law  was
“aimed”  or  “directed.”  Ante,  at  11.  But  read  in  context, 
these  statements  refer  to  the  entity  or  activity  that  the
state  law  regulates,  not  to  which  of  the  activity’s  effects 
the law seeks to control by regulating it.  See, e.g., North-
ern  Natural,  supra,  at  94  (“[O]ur  cases  have  consistently 
recognized  a  significant  distinction  . . .  between  conserva-
tion measures aimed directly at interstate purchasers and