Court Opinion

ID: 9488465
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:46:33.433489+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:54.783783
License: Public Domain

FARRIS, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
In United States v. Lopez, — U.S. —, —, 115 S.Ct. 1624, 1630, 131 L.Ed.2d 626 (1995), the Supreme Court held that Congress may regulate intrastate activities that substantially affect interstate commerce. See also United States v. Robertson, — U.S. —, —, 115 S.Ct. 1732, 1733, 131 L.Ed.2d 714 (1995). In part II we determine whether a private home supplied with out-of-state natural gas satisfies this test. If it does not, the government has not satisfied the jurisdictional element of 18 U.S.C. § 844(i), and Pappo-dopoulos’s conviction must be reversed.
I agree with the majority’s opinion that “[t]he arson of a [private home] has only a remote and indirect effect on interstate commerce.” The receipt of interstate natural gas does not establish a sufficient nexus with interstate commerce. See United States v. Bass, 404 U.S. 336, 347, 92 S.Ct. 515, 522, 30 L.Ed.2d 488 (1971).
The Supreme Court has upheld a variety of congressional Acts regulating intrastate economic activity even if individual cases only indirectly affect interstate commerce. Lopez, at-, 115 S.Ct. at 1630. The rationale is that the aggregate effect of economic regulation is substantial. In Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111, 63 S.Ct. 82, 87 L.Ed. 122 (1942), for example, the Supreme Court upheld a statute establishing quotas for wheat production. Although Roscoe Filburn’s wheat production had at most an “indirect” effect on interstate commerce, the regulations’ aggregate effect on all wheat production “is not trivial.” Id. at 119, 128, 63 S.Ct. at 90. This case, however, does not qualify as economic regulation. Prohibiting arson of private homes “is not an essential part of a larger regulation of economic activity, in which the regulatory scheme could be undercut unless the intrastate activity were regulated.” Lopez, at -, 115 S.Ct. at 1631.