Court Opinion

ID: 9426479
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:18:06.293177+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:01.189773
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Brennan,
with whom Mr. Justice White and Mr. Justice Marshall join, dissenting.
The Court continues its reinterpretation of the Commerce Clause and its repudiation of established principles guiding judicial analysis thereunder — in this case shifting its focus from congressional power arising under the Commerce Clause, see National League of Cities v. Usery, post, p. 833, to the role of this Court in considering the constitutionality of state action claimed impermissibly to burden interstate commerce. Principles of legal analysis heretofore employed in our cases considering claims under the Commerce Clause, e. g., South Carolina Hwy. Dept. v. Barnwell Bros., 303 U. S. 177 (1938); Southern Pacific Co. v. Arizona ex rel. Sullivan, 325 U. S. 761 (1945); H. P. Hood & Sons, Inc. v. Du Mond, 336 U. S. 525 (1949); Bibb v. Navajo Freight Lines, 359 U. S. 520 *818(1959); Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc., 397 U. S. 137 (1970); Great A&P Tea Co. v. Cottrell, 424 U. S. 366 (1976), are ignored,1 and an area of state action plainly burdening interstate commerce, an area not easily susceptible of principled limitation, is judicially carved out and summarily labeled as not “the kind of action with which the Commerce Clause is concerned.” Ante, at 805. I cannot agree that well-established principles for analyzing claims arising under the Commerce Clause are inapplicable merely because of the “kind of [state] action” involved, or that it is defensible that legal analysis should cease, irrespective of the impact on commerce or the other facts and circumstances of the case, merely because the Court somehow categorically determines that the instant case involves “a burden which the Commerce Clause was [not] intended to make suspect.” Ante, at 807.2 In my view, “[e]very case determining whether or not a local regulation amounts to a prohibited 'burden’ on interstate commerce belongs at some point along a graduated scale.” H. P. Hood & Sons, Inc. v. Du Mond, supra, at 568 n. 2 (Frankfurter, J., dissenting). Therefore, I am “constrained to dissent because I cannot agree *819in treating what is essentially a problem of striking a balance between competing interests as an exercise in absolutes.” Id., at 564.
I
I note that appellants do not claim and the Court does not and could not find that the market for scrap metal— including its processing — is not interstate commerce. In addition, there is no claim by appellee that Maryland, if it wishes to run a bounty program to achieve its environmental objectives, must pay a bounty on all scrap hulks irrespective of their State of origin as abandoned vehicles. Plainly Maryland pursuant to its environmental program may “artificially enhance” the price of only those hulks originating as abandoned vehicles within its boundaries. The only questions respecting the Commerce Clause concern the issue of whether Maryland may in effect require that the processing of such scrap, an aspect of its program not obviously related in the first instance to its environmental objectives, be restricted to processors located within the State in light of the asserted governmental objectives in so doing and the consequent effect upon interstate commerce.
However, I cannot agree with the Court that this case is solely to be analyzed in terms of Maryland’s “purchase” of items of interstate commerce and its restriction of such “purchases” to items processed in its own State. The result of this single-minded concept of the issues presented is that the Court in my view not only erroneously decides a weighty constitutional question not previously directly addressed by this Court, but also that it ignores another and equally pressing issue under the Commerce Clause.
II
I first address the question that the Court answers: the question whether a State may restrict its purchases *820of items of interstate commerce to items produced, manufactured, or processed within its own boundaries. When a State so restricts purchases for its own use, it does not affect the total flow of interstate commerce, but rather precludes only that quantum that would otherwise occur if the State were to behave as a private and disinterested purchaser. Nevertheless, it cannot be gainsaid that a State’s refusal for purposes of economic protectionism to purchase for end use items produced elsewhere is a facial and' obvious “discrimination against interstate commerce” that we have often said “[t]he commerce clause, by its own force, prohibits . . . , whatever its form or method.” South Carolina Hwy. Dept. v. Barnwell Bros., 303 U. S., at 185. See H. P. Hood & Sons, Inc. v. Du Mond, 336 U. S., at 535; Best & Co. v. Maxwell, 311 U. S. 454, 455-456 (1940); Pennsylvania v. West Virginia, 262 U. S. 553, 596 (1923). Clearly the “aim and effect” of such a discrimination is “establishing an economic barrier against competition with the products of another state or the labor of its residents,” Baldwin v. G. A. F. Seelig, Inc., 294 U. S. 511, 527 (1935). Certainly the Court’s naked assertion today that “[n]othing in the purposes animating the Commerce Clause prohibits a State . . . from participating in the market and exercising the right to favor its own citizens over others,” ante, at 810, stands in stark contrast to our “repeated emphasis upon the principle that the State may not promote its own economic advantages by curtailment or burdening of interstate commerce.” H. P. Hood & Sons, Inc. v. Du Mond, supra, at 532.
Moreover, the particular form of discrimination arising when the State restricts its purchases for use to items produced in its own State is of a kind particularly suspect under our precedents, as it is aimed directly at re*821quiring the relocation of labor and industry within the bounds of the State, thus tending “to neutralize advantages belonging to” other States, Baldwin v. G. A. F. Seelig, Inc., supra, at 527; Halliburton Oil Well Co. v. Reily, 373 U. S. 64, 72 (1963), and forcing “an artificial rigidity on the economic pattern of the industry.” Toomer v. Witsell, 334 U. S. 385, 404 (1948). See Foster-Fountain Packing Co. v. Haydel, 278 U. S. 1 (1928). We have “viewed with particular suspicion state statutes requiring business operations to be performed in the home State that could more efficiently be performed elsewhere. Even where the State is pursuing a clearly legitimate local interest, this particular burden on commerce has been declared to be virtually per se illegal.” Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc., 397 U. S., at 145 (emphasis supplied). And we have never held protection of a State’s own' citizens from the burden of economic competition with citizens of other States to be such a “clearly legitimate local interest.” See, e. g., H. P. Hood & Sons, Inc., supra; Baldwin v. G. A. F. Seelig, Inc., supra. Patently, so to hold “would be to eat up the rule under the guise of an exception.” 294 U. S., at 523.
It is true, as the Court notes, that we have not previously directly addressed the question whether, when a State enters the market as purchaser for end use of items in interstate commerce, it may “[restrict] its trade to its own citizens or businesses within the State.” Ante, at 808.3 The novelty of the question, however, does not *822justify the Court's conclusory assertion, without analysis employing established constitutional principles or policies, that “[njothing in the purposes animating the Commerce Clause prohibits a State ... from participating in the market and exercising the right to favor its Own citizens over others.” Ante, at 810. Certainly the Court does not attempt to tell us the source of any such “right.” 4 Others have argued that the barriers to interstate commerce imposed by restrictive state purchasing policies are already of great significance, Melder, The *823Economics of Trade Barriers, 16 Ind. L. J. 127, 139-141 (1940), and other courts have refused, “in the light of the expanding proprietary activities of the states,” invitations to forgo al) Commerce Clause analysis merely because the State is acting in a proprietary purchasing capacity in, implementing its discriminatory policies. Garden State Dairies of Vineland, Inc. v. Sills, 46 N. J. 349, 358, 217 A. 2d 126, 130 (1966). See also Recent Cases, 80 Harv. L. Rev. 1357, 1360-1361 (1967).
I would hold, consistent with accepted Commerce Clause principles, that state statutes that facially or in practical effect restrict state purchases of items in interstate commerce to those produced within the State are invalid unless justified by asserted state interests-^other than economic protectionism — in regulating matters of local concern for which “reasonable nondiscriminatory alternatives, adequate to conserve legitimate local interests, are [not] available.” Dean Milk Co. v. Madison, 340 U. S. 349, 354 (1951). See Great A&P Tea Co. v. Cottrell, 424 U. S., at 373; Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc., supra, at 142; Polar Ice Cream & Creamery Co. v. Andrews, 375 U. S. 361, 375 n. 9 (1964); Baldwin v. G. A. F. Seelig, Inc., supra, at 524.5
*824Ill
Second, the Court’s insistence on viewing this case as qualitatively different under the Commerce Clause merely because the State is in some sense acting as a “purchaser” of the affected items of commerce leads it completely to forgo analysis of another equally vital question. For even those courts and commentators that have concluded that facially restrictive state purchasing statutes are permissible under the Commerce Clause, e. g., American Yearbook Co. v. Askew, 339 F. Supp. 719 (MD Fla.), summarily aff’d, 409 U. S. 904 (1972); McAllister, Court, Congress and Trade Barriers, 16 Ind. L. J. 144, 164r-165 (1940), have restricted this conclusion to instances where the State in a “proprietary” capacity is purchasing items of commerce for end use, and have distinguished other modes of regulation burdening interstate commerce. But it is clear that Maryland in the instant case is not “purchasing” scrap processing for end use; rather, by in effect requiring “price enhanced” hulks to be processed ¡within the State of Maryland, it is affecting one link in the chain of interstate commerce for scrap metal, a line of commerce that originates prior to Maryland’s regulation and continues long past that point. Even if, as the Court concludes, state economic protectionism in “purchasing” items of interstate commerce is not a suspect motive under the Commerce Clause, analysis in this case cannot cease at that point, for by the instant regulation Maryland is allegedly affecting a larger area of commerce by diverting processing of scrap metal in interstate commerce to within its own boundaries.6
*825The Court’s only apparent reference to this impact on the larger area of commerce in scrap metal is that “Maryland has not sought to prohibit the flow of hulks, *826or to regulate the conditions under which it may occur.” Ante, at 806 (emphasis supplied). This conclusion is arguable at best,7 and our cases establish that “[o]ne challenging the validity of a state enactment” on Corn-*827merce Clause grounds is not bound by the State’s “declarations of purpose” and may show that the purported objective “is a feigned and not the real purpose.” Foster-Fountain Packing Co. v. Haydel, 278 U. S., at 10. See also Toomer v. Witsell, 334 U. S. 385 (1948); Buck v. Kuykendall, 267 U. S. 307, 315-316 (1925). More importantly, regardless of the purity of the State’s motives or intent with respect to burdening interstate commerce, analysis does not cease at that point for “ 'a state may not, in any form or under any guise, directly burden the prosecution of interstate business.’ ” Baldwin v. G. A. F. Seelig, Inc., 294 U. S., at 522; see Best & Co. v. Maxwell, 311 U. S., at 455-456. “A different view . . . would mean that the Commerce Clause of itself imposes no limitations on state action . . . , save for the rare instance where a state artlessly discloses an avowed purpose to discriminate against interstate goods.” Dean Milk Co. v. Madison, 340 U. S., at 354.
Rather, once a legitimate state regulation of an object of local concern is found to burden interstate commerce, “this states the beginning of a problem in constitutional law; it does not give the answer.” Bode v. Barrett, 344 U. S. 583, 589 (1953) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting). Established principles dictate that in such a situation analysis proceed as follows:
“Where the statute regulates evenhandedly to effectuate a legitimate local public interest, and its effects on interstate commerce are only incidental, it will be upheld unless the burden imposed on such commerce is clearly excessive in relation to the putative local benefits. ... If a legitimate local purpose is found, then the question becomes one of degree. And the extent of the burden that will be tolerated will of course depend on the nature of the local interest involved, and on whether it could be pro*828moted as well with a lesser impact on interstate activities.” Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc., 397 U. S., at 142.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter, universally recognized to be among the foremost students and judicial practitioners of the jurisprudence of the Commerce Clause, has said:
“The Willson decision [Willson v. Black-Bird Creek Marsh Co., 2 Pet. 245 (1829)] begins a wholesome emphasis upon the concrete elements of the situation that concerns both state and national interests. The particularities of a local statute touch its special aims and the scope of their fulfillment, the difficulties which it seeks to adjust, the price at which it does so. These and kindred practical considerations, in their myriad manifestations, have weighed with the Court in determining the fate of state legislation impinging on the activities of national commerce, ever since Marshall in the Willson case set the standard for deciding such controversies 'under all the circumstances of the case.’ ... In the history of the Supreme Court no single quality more differentiates judges than the acuteness of their realization that practical considerations, however screened by doctrine, underlie resolution of conflicts between state and national power.” F. Frankfurter, The Commerce Clause Under Marshall, Taney and Waite 33-34 (1937).
The Court today fails that test in my view by mechanically concluding that Maryland’s action is not “the kind of action with which the Commerce Clause is concerned,” ante, at 805, merely because the State is in some sense acting as a “purchaser” of items in interstate commerce. In the absence of some limiting principle, this is a disturbing conclusion, for little imagination is required to *829foresee future state actions “set [ting] barrier [s] to traffic between one state and another as effective as if customs duties . . . had been laid upon the thing transported,” Baldwin v. G. A. F. Seelig, Inc., supra, at 521. This can surely occur if all state action is to be immunized from further analysis merely because the design of the regulatory scheme is to “artificially enhance” the price of goods produced within its State by the State's becoming in some sense a “purchaser” of such goods at a point in the total line of commerce short of end purchaser.
It may well be, as developed in Part IV, infra, that there are limiting principles in the circumstances of this case because, by means of its policy restricting the location of scrap processing, Maryland is truly regulating matters of local concern respecting its environment and there is as a practical matter an absence of “reasonable nondiscriminatory alternatives, adequate to conserve legitimate local interests.” Dean Milk Co. v. Madison, supra, at 354. But the Court fails to search for such limiting circumstances and shuts off analysis merely because of the form of the state regulation, thus effectively “im-mun[izing]” state “statutes . . . requiring that certain kinds of processing be done in the home State before shipment to a sister State,” Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc., supra, at 141, so long as the mode of regulation may be characterized as the State functioning as a “purchaser.” Clearly, if the States are to be absolutely unrestrained in their regulation of interstate markets so long as they use methods that may fairly be characterized as “purchasing” items by “artificially enhancing” the price, then the door is open for the States to “ ‘set up what is equivalent to a rampart of customs duties designed to neutralize advantages belonging to the place of origin.' ” Polar Ice Cream & Creamery Co. v. Andrews, 375 U. S., at 377.
*830IV
Maryland argues that its effective preclusion of out-of-state scrap processors from the relevant portion of the bounty program is required in order to help ensure that bounty payments are limited to hulks abandoned within Maryland and that its public funds are not used in effect to aid in the clearance of hulks abandoned in other States. Certainly this asserted interest is a legitimate object of local concern, and since Willson v. Black-Bird Creek Marsh Co., 2 Pet. 245 (1829), we have “recognized that, in the absence of conflicting legislation by Congress, there is a residuum of power in the state to make laws governing matters of local concern which nevertheless in some measure affect interstate commerce or even, to some extent, regulate it.” Southern Pacific Co. v. Arizona ex rel. Sullivan, 325 U. S., at 767; see Huron Cement Co. v. Detroit, 362 U. S. 440, 443-444 (1960). But the mere assertion of a legitimate local interest being served by the challenged regulation does not end the matter, for there exists an “infinite variety of cases, in which regulation of local matters may also operate as a regulation of commerce, in which reconciliation of the conflicting claims of state and national power is to be attained only by some appraisal and accommodation of the competing demands of the state and national interests involved.” Southern Pacific Co. v. Arizona ex rel. Sullivan, supra, at 768-769. In resolving such questions in close cases, the Court is necessarily involved in “differences of degree [resolution of which] depend [s] on slight differences of fact.” H. P. Hood & Sons, Inc. v. Du Mond, 336 U. S., at 572 (Frankfurter, J., dissenting); Southern Pacific Co. v. Arizona ex rel. Sullivan, supra, at 796 (Douglas, J., dissenting), and an adequate record containing the “relevant factual material which will 'afford a sure basis’ for an informed judgment” is required. *831Id., at 770 (Court’s opinion). Such a record is lacking in the instant case.
This case comes to us in a summary judgment posture, and, respecting the impact of the state regulation on the larger area of interstate commerce, the record as the Court notes "contains no details of the hulk [processing] market prior to the bounty scheme.” Ante, at 809 n. 18.8 Similarly, respecting the State’s justification for the preclusion of out-of-state processors — ensuring that bounties are not paid for hulks originating out of State — the record, as the Court also notes but only in the equal protection context, contains no evidence of whether this objective is in fact achieved by the challenged action or in what degree. Nor is the record developed in regard to the availability of “reasonable nondiscriminatory alternatives, adequate to conserve [this] legitimate local [interest].” Dean Milk Co. v. Madison, 340 U. S., at 354. The only evidence in the record is speculative at best, revealing that neither the statute nor administrative regulations promulgated thereunder limit bounty payments to hulks' originating in Maryland or protect against hulks originating out of State from being processed by in-state processors under the bounty program. Nevertheless, an adequately developed factual record might well inform a judgment that the simple preclusion of out-of-state processors, in light of transportation costs to scrap haulers when they haul Maryland hulks to out-of-state processors, is as reasonable and inexpensive a *832means of ensuring that bounty payments are not made for hulks originating out of State as is available to the State under all the circumstances. Accordingly, I would vacate the judgment below and remand for the development of a record adequate to inform a reasonable judgment on these factual issues. Florida Avocado Growers, Inc. v. Paul, 373 U. S. 132, 136-137 (1963); H. P. Hood & Sons, Inc. v. Du Mond, supra, at 574 (Frankfurter, J., dissenting).

 For a hundred years it has been accepted constitutional doctrine that the commerce clause, without the aid of Congressional legislation, . . . affords some protection from state legislation inimical to the national commerce, and that in such cases, where Congress has not acted, this Court, and not the state legislature, is under the commerce clause the final arbiter of the competing demands of state and national interests.” Southern Pacific Co. v. Arizona ex rel. Sullivan, 325 U. S. 761, 769 (1945).

 Heretofore, adjudication under the Commerce Clause has invoked a sensitive judicial scrutiny, entailing “a consideration of all the facts and circumstances, such as the nature of the regulation, its function, the character of the business involved and the actual effect on the flow of commerce.” Di Santo v. Pennsylvania, 273 U. S. 34, 44 (1927) (Stone, J., dissenting). See Great A&P Tea Co. v. Cottrell, 424 U. S. 366, 371 (1976).

 The Court has, however, summarily affirmed a lower court ruling to this effect, which distinguished state purchases in a “proprietary” capacity of goods for its own use from other state burdens imposed on interstate commerce. American Yearbook Co. v. Askew, 339 F. Supp. 719 (MD Fla.), summarily aff’d, 409 U. S. 904 (1972) (BreNNAN and White, JJ., voting to note probable jurisdiction).
The Court has said in other contexts that “[l]ike private individuals and businesses, the Government enjoys the unrestricted *822power to produce its own supplies, to determine those with whom it will deal, and to fix the terms and conditions upon which it will make needed purchases.” Perkins v. Lukens Steel Co., 310 U. S. 113, 127 (1940). See also Heim v. McCall, 239 U. S. 175, 191-192 (1915); Atkin v. Kansas, 191 U.S. 207, 222-223 (1903). None of these cases involved challenges to restrictive state purchasing statutes under the Commerce Clause. Cf. Field v. Barber Asphalt Co., 194 U. S. 618 (1904), which upheld in the face of a Commerce Clause challenge local governmental contracts that mandated the purchase of out-of-state materials.

 The absence of any articulated principle justifying this summary conclusion leads me to infer that the newly announced “state sovereignty” doctrine of National League of Cities v. Usery, post, p. 833, is also the motivating rationale behind this holding. It is true that the Court disclaims any conclusion today respecting congressional power to legislate in this area, ante, at 810 n. 19, and I hope that is so. I confess a logical difficulty, however, in understanding why, if the instant state action is not “the kind of action with which the Commerce Clause is concerned,” ante, at 805, there can be any congressional power to legislate in this area. This exposes one of the difficulties with the Court’s categorical approach to today’s decision, which simply carves out an area of state action to which it declares the Commerce Clause has no application, rather than employing heretofore accepted principles of analysis looking to the state interest asserted, the impact on interstate commerce flowing from the challenged action, and the availability of reasonable and nondiscriminatory methods for achieving the state interest, and concluding with a reasoned and considered judgment under all the circumstances of the permissibility of the action.

 In Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc., although we stated that “statutes requiring business operations to be performed in the home State that could more efficiently be performed elsewhere” are burdens on commerce '‘virtually per se illegal,” 397 U. S., at 145, we recognized that such an effect as “an incidental consequence of a regulatory scheme could perhaps be tolerated” if necessary to achieve substantial state interests in regulating matters of local concern. Id., at 146. Accordingly, even in this area of effect on interstate commerce we recognized the need for our traditional balancing approach to Commerce Clause analysis, id., at 142, rather than the absolutist approach employed by the Court today.
For my conclusions respecting whether the instant statutory discrimination may be justified under accepted Commerce Clause principles, see infra, Part IV.

 When the State simply refuses to purchase for its own use items that have been processed out of State, the impact on interstate commerce may be crudely measured by multiplying the value added in processing times the number of items the State purchases. In this *825case, however, the impact on commerce is not so restricted; the State in effect not only requires that the value added by processing in respect to the State’s environmental objectives — presumptively the amount of the bounty paid which is retained by the processors, a small amount since the record shows that processors customarily pass the largest portion of the bounty on to the scrap haulers — be added within the State, but also that the entire addition of value, including that occurring in response to market demand for scrap metal qua metal, be done within the State. In other words, by this mode of regulation, as opposed to what occurs by virtue of restrictions on proprietary purchases for the State’s own use, Maryland is in effect diverting processing to locations within its borders of both that element of value that it “purchases,” and that arising in response to interstate demand for scrap metal that it does not “purchase.”
The concurring opinion asserts that “by hypothesis,” a hypothesis unsupported in the record, see infra, at 831, and n. 8, “we are dealing with a business that is dependent on the availability of subsidy payments,” "[t]hat [the] commerce, which is now said to be burdened, would never have existed if in the first instance Maryland had decided to confine its subsidy to operators of Maryland plants,” and that the “ ‘burden’ on the Virginia processor is caused by the nonreceipt of the subsidy, regardless of whether or not Maryland elects to continue to subsidize its local plants.” Ante, at 815, 816. With all respect, however, the evidence and legal arguments are to the contrary. An uncontradicted affidavit in the record reveals that $14 of the $16 “subsidy” is customarily passed on to the scrap hauler, App. 79A, and the inability of the out-of-state processor to pass this subsidy on to the haulers, rather than simply the lack of subsidization of scrap processing itself, is alleged to burden interstate commerce by diverting scrap processing to Maryland.
The complaint alleges that “[a] substantial portion of the Plaintiff’s business consists of the destruction and processing of vehicles acquired in interstate commerce from towers and other third persons in Maryland”; that the challenged amendment “enables] Maryland scrap processors to provide financial inducements to [towers] while depriving the plaintiff of the ability to provide [the] same”; that “[i]n consequence . . . the plaintiff is placed at a *826severe competitive and economic disadvantage with Maryland scrap processors because of the arbitrary diversion of [hulks] away from the normal channels of interstate commerce”; and that appellee has been “depriv[ed] ... of a vital source of scrap, iron, steel and nonferrous scrap which normally moved in interstate commerce.” Id., at 10A-11A.
The stipulated facts establish that the “market value of . . . hulks is heavily dependent upon the prices steel mills are willing to pay for . . . scrap [metal], which in turn is influenced by national and international economic conditions,” and that “[t]he result is relatively fierce competition by scrap processors for the acquisition of the available . . . hulks.” Id., at 59A.
An uncontradicted aflidavit in the record asserts that “[t]he lifeblood of the scrap metal processing industry is old cars,” that “[t]he primary source of Plaintiff’s raw materials is trade in . . . hulks,” and that “[a] very substantial portion of the Plaintiff’s trade in old cars is derived from Maryland.” Id., at 74A-75A. “The ability to acquire eight year old or older [hulks] from Maryland . . . is of crucial importance to the conduct of the Plaintiff’s business,” id., at 78A, and the market response to the challenged amendment which disabled appellee from passing the bounty on to the haulers “was an almost total abandonment of Plaintiff by its former regular [haulers participating in the bounty program].” “[I]n times of scarcity of old cars when both the offering price is high and the competition [among scrap processors] for the available cars is sharpest, the ability to [pass the bounty on to the scrap haulers] which is, in effect, an offer of a higher price without increasing the cost of the raw material to the processor, imparts a distinct competitive edge to those processors fully able to participate in the bounty program.” Id., at 82A-83A.

 The preamble to the Act amending the method by which scrap processors may obtain title sufficient for participation in the bounty program and limiting the only practical method to scrap processors located within the State declares that the Act is “[f]or the purpose of protecting certain scrap processors who destroy certain abandoned motor vehicles . . . .” Id., at 15A (emphasis in original).

 The concurring opinion asserts that the interstate market in processing scrap metal allegedly burdened by Maryland’s bounty scheme as amended “was previously too small to be significant.” Ante, at 815 n. Nothing in the record supports this factual judgment, as appellants themselves argue, Brief for Appellants 37-39; Reply Brief for Appellants 2-3, and as the Court below noted, 391 F. Supp. 46, 62 (1975).