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Page Number: 17

14 

BOND v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

eral statute’s domain.”  Id., at 857.  We instead held that the 
statute  was  “most  sensibly  read”  more  narrowly  to  reach 
only buildings used in “active employment for commercial 
purposes.”  Id.,  at  855.    We  noted  that  “arson  is  a  para-
digmatic  common-law  state  crime,”  id.,  at  858,  and  that 
the  Government’s  proposed  broad reading  would  “ ‘signifi-
cantly  change[ ]  the  federal-state  balance,’ ”  ibid.  (quoting 
Bass, 404 U. S., at 349), “mak[ing] virtually every arson in
the country a federal offense,” 529 U. S., at 859.  

These  precedents  make  clear  that  it  is  appropriate  to
refer  to  basic  principles  of  federalism  embodied  in  the
Constitution to resolve ambiguity in a federal statute.  In 
this  case,  the  ambiguity  derives  from  the  improbably 
broad  reach  of  the  key  statutory  definition  given  the
term—“chemical  weapon”—being  defined;  the  deeply
serious  consequences  of  adopting  such  a  boundless  read-
ing; and the lack of any apparent need to do so in light of 
the  context  from  which  the  statute  arose—a  treaty  about 
chemical warfare and terrorism.  We conclude that, in this 
curious case, we can insist on a clear indication that Con-
gress meant to reach purely local crimes, before interpret-
ing  the  statute’s  expansive  language  in  a  way  that  in-
trudes on the police power of the States.  See Bass, supra, 
at 349.2 

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2 JUSTICE SCALIA contends that the relevance of Bass and Jones to this 
case is “entirely made up,” post, at 3 (opinion concurring in judgment),
but  not  because  he  disagrees  with  interpreting  statutes  in  light  of 
principles  of  federalism.  Rather,  he  says  that  Bass  was  a  case  where 
the statute was unclear.  We agree; we simply think the statute in this
case is also subject to construction, for the reasons given.  As for Jones, 
JUSTICE  SCALIA  argues  that  the  discussion  of  federalism  in  that  case
was  beside  the  point.  Post,  at  4.  We  do  not  read  Jones  that  way;  the
Court adopted the “most sensibl[e] read[ing]” of the statute, 529 U. S., 
at  855,  which  suggests  that  other  sensible  readings  were  possible.    In 
arriving  at  its  fair  reading  of  the  statute,  the  Court  considered  the 
dramatic  extent  to  which  the  Government’s  broader  interpretation
would have expanded “the federal statute’s domain.”  Id., at 857.  We do