Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-468_5if6.pdf
Page Number: 33.0

Cite as:  598 U. S. ____ (2023) 

27 

Opinion of the Court 

ROBERTS, C. J.).  These include social costs that are “diffi-
cult to quantify” such as (in this case) costs to the “national
pig population,” “animal husbandry” traditions, and (again) 
“industry practice.”  Post, at 6–9; see also post, at 3–5 (opin-
ion of KAVANAUGH, J.).  But not even petitioners read Pike 
so boldly.  While petitioners argue that Proposition 12 does
not benefit pigs (as California has asserted), they have not 
asked this Court (or any court) to treat putative harms to
out-of-state animal welfare or other noneconomic interests 
as freestanding harms cognizable under the dormant Com-
merce  Clause.  Nor  could  they  have  proceeded  otherwise. 
Our decisions have authorized claims alleging “burdens on
commerce.”  Davis, 553 U. S., at 353.  They do not provide
judges “a roving license” to reassess the wisdom of state leg-
islation in light of any conceivable out-of-state interest, eco-
nomic or otherwise.  United Haulers, 550 U. S., at 343.4 

V 
Before the Constitution’s passage, Rhode Island imposed
special taxes on imported “New-England Rum”; Connecti-
cut levied duties on goods “brought into th[e] State, by Land 

—————— 

4 Both dissents seek to characterize today’s decision as “fractured” in 
an effort to advance their own overbroad readings of Pike and layer their 
own  gloss  on  opinions  they  do  not  join.  Post,  at  1,  8  (opinion  of 
KAVANAUGH, J.);  see  also  post  at  2–4,  8–10  (opinion  of  ROBERTS,  C. J.).  
But the dissents are just that—dissents.  Their glosses do not speak for 
the Court.  Today, the Court unanimously disavows petitioners’ “almost 
per se” rule against laws with extraterritorial effects.  See Parts II and 
III, supra.  When it comes to Pike, a majority agrees that heartland Pike 
cases seek to smoke out purposeful discrimination in state laws (as illu-
minated by those laws’ practical effects) or seek to protect the instrumen-
talities of interstate transportation.  See Part IV–A, supra.  A majority 
also  rejects  any  effort  to  expand  Pike’s  domain  to  cover  cases  like  this 
one, some of us for reasons found in Part IV–B, others of us for reasons 
discussed in Part IV–C.  Today’s decision depends equally on the analysis
found in both of these sections; without either, there is no explaining the 
Court’s  judgment  affirming  the  decision  below.    A  majority  also  sub-
scribes to what follows in Part V.