Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/13-271_j4ek.pdf
Page Number: 29

8 

ONEOK, INC. v. LEARJET, INC. 

SCALIA, J., dissenting 

fulness  of  challenged  practices.    Legal  Aspects  of  Buying
and  Selling  §10:12  (P.  Zeidman  ed.  2014–2015).  This 
amorphous  standard  requires  the  reviewing  court  to  con-
sider  “a  variety  of  factors,  including  specific  information
about the relevant business, its condition before and after 
the  restraint  was  imposed,  and  the  restraint’s  history, 
nature, and effect.”  State Oil Co. v. Khan, 522 U. S. 3, 10 
(1997).  Far from authorizing across-the-board application
of  a  uniform  requirement,  therefore,  the  Court’s  decision
will  invite  state  antitrust  courts  to  engage  in  targeted 
regulation of the natural-gas industry.

The  Court  also  stresses  the  “ ‘long  history’ ”  of  state 
antitrust regulation.  Ante, at 14.  Again, quite beside the
point.  States have long regulated public utilities, yet the
Natural  Gas  Act  precludes  them  from  using  that  estab-
lished power to fix gas wholesale prices.  United Fuel, 317 
U. S.,  at  468.    States  also  have  long  enacted  laws  to  con-
serve  natural  resources,  yet  the  Act  precludes  them  from 
deploying  that  power  to  control  purchases  made  by  gas 
pipelines.  Northern  Natural,  372  U. S.,  at  93–94.    The 
Court’s  invocation  of  the  pedigree  of  state  antitrust  law 
rests on air. 

One  need  not  launch  this  unbounded  inquiry  into  the
features  of  state  law  in  order  to  preserve  the  States’  au-
thority  to  apply  “tax  laws,”  “disclosure  laws,”  and  “blue 
sky laws” to natural-gas companies, ante, at 12.  One need 
only  stand  by  the  principle  that  if  the  Commission  has 
authority  over  a  subject,  the  States  lack  authority  over
that subject.  The Commission’s authority to regulate gas
pipelines  “in  the  public  interest,”  §717a,  is  a  power  to
address  matters  that  are  traditionally  the  concern  of
utility  regulators,  not  “a  broad  license  to  promote  the
general public welfare,” NAACP v. FPC, 425 U. S. 662, 669 
(1976).  We have explained that the Commission does not,
for  example,  have  power  to  superintend  “employment
discrimination”  or  “unfair  labor  practices.”  Id.,  at  670–