Court Opinion

ID: 9430580
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:30:07.041541+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:25.031322
License: Public Domain

*18Justice Blackmun,
dissenting.
In Japan Line, Ltd. v. County of Los Angeles, 441 U. S. 434 (1979), this Court recognized that the Commerce Clause commits to the exclusive authority of the Federal Government the regulation of those aspects of foreign commerce that by their very nature “necessitate a uniform national rule.” Id., at 449. In regulating commercial relations with foreign governments, “‘the Federal Government must speak with one voice.’” Ibid., quoting Michelin Tire Corp. v. Wages, 423 U. S. 276, 285 (1976). As a result, the Court in Japan Line held that the imposition of California’s ad valo-rem property tax on foreign-owned containers used exclusively in foreign commerce was unconstitutional. The tax imposed in this case by Florida on fuel is indistinguishable, for Commerce Clause purposes, from the -tax imposed by California on containers in Japan Line. Because a State’s taxation on fuel used in foreign commerce will prohibit the Federal Government from speaking with “one voice,” I believe that this application of Florida’s tax violates the Constitution.
The Court, however, finds Japan Line inapposite, asserting that “we do not confront federal governmental silence of the sort that triggers dormant Commerce Clause analysis.” Ante, at 9. To the Court, that the Federal Government has addressed some aspects of foreign aviation taxation, but has not expressly prohibited the imposition of state and local taxes, see ante, at 10-11, is a sufficient basis for upholding the tax at issue here. Apparently, the Court believes that once the Federal Government has spoken at all in an area, the Commerce Clause operates to permit States to act except if such action is expressly prohibited. But we have never permitted validation of state burdens on foreign commerce through this sort of implication.
For a state regulation to be removed from the reach of the dormant Commerce Clause, the intent of the Federal Government to permit state activity “must be unmistakably *19clear.” South-Central Timber Development, Inc. v. Wunnicke, 467 U. S. 82, 91 (1984). And the “need for a consistent and coherent foreign policy, which is the exclusive responsibility of the Federal Government,” heightens the need for affirmative approval. Id., at 92, n. 7. The Court’s holding today is based not on the presence of this requisite “affirmative approval”; rather, the Court relies on a “negative implication arising out of more than 70 agreements” that indicate that “the United States has at least acquiesced” in the kind of tax imposed here (emphasis added). Ante, at 12. Whether or not these agreements suggest acquiescence is beside the point; what is clear is that the Federal Government has not provided the affirmative approval required to permit States to act.
The Government’s efforts in the international sphere reveal an overarching and coherent policy directed at the creation of reciprocal tax exemptions in the area of foreign aviation. The Nation’s aviation relations with foreign governments are implemented through a comprehensive network of treaties, bilateral executive agreements, informal arrangements, and federal statutes. Although these provisions stop short of explicitly banning state levies on aircraft fuel used in foreign travel, the indisputable pattern that emerges is one of a policy of reciprocal tax exemptions for instrumentalities of international commerce, like the containers in Japan Line and the fuel at issue here. The Government’s inability to date to achieve full international consent to reciprocal tax exclusions neither negates nor demonstrates the absence of federal policy; it simply means that the United States has not fully succeeded, as yet, in transforming its policy into law. Indeed, the “aspiration ... to eliminate all impediments to foreign air travel” (emphasis deleted), recognized by the Court, ante, at 10, is precisely the federal policy that renders the application of Florida’s tax to the fuel here unconstitutional.
The decision today leaves Florida and other States free to tax foreign aviation, and will hinder the United States in *20its efforts to attain reciprocal tax immunity with foreign governments. Florida’s action may well undermine reciprocity agreements since other countries may react to Florida’s tax with various retaliatory measures against United States carriers abroad, retaliation that “of necessity would be felt by the Nation as a whole.” Japan Line, 441 U. S., at 453. Florida’s actions may also hamper the United States’ position in negotiations designed to achieve the federal policy of reciprocity because the Nation cannot speak with “one voice.” In Japan Line, this Court made clear that a State, “by its unilateral act, cannot be permitted to place . . . impediments before this Nation’s conduct of its foreign relations and its foreign trade.” Ibid. Because the Court’s decision today permits just that, I respectfully dissent.