HUGHES v. OKLAHOMA

441 U.S. 322 (1979)

Decided April 24, 1979

MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN delivered the opinion of the Court.

The question presented for decision is whether Okla. Stat., Tit. 29, 4-115 (B), violates the Commerce Clause, Art. I, 8, cl. 3, of the United States Constitution, insofar as it provides that "[n]o person may transport or ship minnows for sale outside the state which were seined or procured within the waters of this state . . . ."

Appellant William Hughes holds a Texas license to operate a commercial minnow business near Wichita Falls, Tex. An Oklahoma game ranger arrested him on a charge of violating 4-115 (B) by transporting from Oklahoma to Wichita Falls a load of natural minnows purchased from a minnow dealer licensed to do business in Oklahoma. Hughes' defense that 4-115 (B) was unconstitutional because it was repugnant to the Commerce Clause was rejected, and he was convicted and fined. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed, stating: "The United States Supreme Court has held on numerous occasions that the wild animals and fish within a state's border are, so far as capable of ownership, owned by the state in its sovereign capacity for the common benefit of all its people. Because of such ownership, and in the exercise of its police power, the state may regulate and control the taking, subsequent use and property rights that may be acquired therein."

We noted probable jurisdiction. We reverse.

I

The few simple words of the Commerce Clause - "The Congress shall have Power . . . To regulate Commerce . . . among the several States . . ." - reflected a central concern of the Framers that was an immediate reason for calling the Constitutional Convention: the conviction that in order to succeed, the new Union would have to avoid the tendencies toward economic Balkanization that had plagued relations among the Colonies and later among the States under the Articles of Confederation. The cases defining the scope of permissible state regulation in areas of congressional silence reflect an often controversial evolution of rules to accommodate federal and state interests. Geer v. Connecticut was decided relatively early in that evolutionary process. We hold that time has revealed the error of the early resolution reached in that case, and accordingly Geer is today overruled.
 

A

Geer sustained against a Commerce Clause challenge a statute forbidding the transportation beyond the State of game birds that had been lawfully killed within the State. The decision rested on the holding that no interstate commerce was involved. This conclusion followed in turn from the view that the State had the power, as representative for its citizens, who "owned" in common all wild animals within the State, to control not only the taking of game but also the ownership of game that had been lawfully reduced to possession. By virtue of this power, Connecticut could qualify the ownership of wild game taken within the State by, for example, prohibiting its removal from the State: "The common ownership imports the right to keep the property, if the sovereign so chooses, always within its jurisdiction for every purpose."  Accordingly, the State's power to qualify ownership raised serious doubts whether the sale or exchange of wild game constituted "commerce" at all; in any event the Court held that the qualification imposed by the challenged statute removed any transactions involving wild game killed in Connecticut from interstate commerce....
 

B

The view of the Geer dissenters increasingly prevailed in subsequent cases. Indeed, not only has the Geer analysis been rejected when natural resources other than wild game were involved, but even state regulations of wild game have been held subject to the strictures of the Commerce Clause under the pretext of distinctions from Geer.

The erosion of Geer began only 15 years after it was decided. A Commerce Clause challenge was addressed to an Oklahoma statute designed to prohibit the transportation beyond the State of natural gas produced by wells within the State. West v. Kansas Natural Gas Co.(1911). Based on reasoning parallel to that in Geer, Oklahoma urged its right to "conserve" the gas for the use of its own citizens, stressing the limited supply and the absence of alternative sources of fuel within the State. Nevertheless, the Court, in a passage reminiscent of the dissents in Geer, condemned the obvious protectionist motive in the Oklahoma statute and rejected the State's arguments with a powerful reaffirmation of the vision of the Framers..

The Court distinguished discriminatory or prohibitory regulations offensive to the Commerce Clause, such as the Oklahoma statute, from a valid "exercise of the police power to regulate the taking of natural gas" that was "universal in its application and justified by the nature of the gas and which allowed its transportation to other states...."

This formulation was employed only last Term to strike down New Jersey's attempt to "conserve" the natural resource of landfill areas within the State for the disposal of waste generated within the State. Philadelphia v. New Jersey (1978).

The Geer analysis has also been eroded to the point of virtual extinction in cases involving regulation of wild animals. The first challenge to Geer's theory of a State's power over wild animals came in Missouri v. Holland (1920). The State of Missouri, relying on the theory of state ownership of wild animals, attacked the Migratory Bird Treaty Act on the ground that it interfered with the State's control over wild animals within its boundaries. Writing for the Court, Mr. Justice Holmes upheld the Act as a properexercise of the treatymaking power. He commented in passing on the artificiality of the Geer rationale: "To put the claim of the State upon title is to lean upon a slender reed...."

Toomer v. Witsell (1948), which struck down as violations of the Commerce Clause and the Privileges and Immunities Clause certain South Carolina laws discriminating against out-of-state commercial fishermen: "The whole ownership theory, in fact, is now generally regarded as but a fiction expressive in legal shorthand of the importance to its people that a State have power to preserve and regulate the exploitation of an important resource."

Although stated in reference to the Privileges and Immunities Clause challenge, this reasoning is equally applicable to the Commerce Clause challenge...."A State does not stand in the same position as the owner of a private game preserve and it is pure fantasy to talk of `owning' wild fish, birds, or animals. Neither the States nor the Federal Government, any more than a hopeful fisherman or hunter, has title to these creatures until they are reduced to possession by skillful capture." The `ownership' language of cases such as those cited by appellant must be understood as no more than a 19th-century legal fiction expressing `the importance to its people that a State have power to preserve and regulate the exploitation of an important resource.'  Under modern analysis, the question is simply whether the State has exercised its police power in conformity with the federal laws and Constitution."

C

The case before us is the first in modern times to present facts essentially on all fours with Geer. We now conclude that challenges under the Commerce Clause to state regulations of wild animals should be considered according to the same general rule applied to state regulations of other natural resources, and therefore expressly overrule Geer....
 

II

We turn then to the question whether the burden imposed on interstate commerce in wild game by 4-115 (B) is permissible under the general rule articulated in our precedents governing other types of commerce. Under that general rule, we must inquire (1) whether the challenged statute regulates evenhandedly with only "incidental" effects on interstate commerce, or discriminates against interstate commerce either on its face or in practical effect; (2) whether the statute serves a legitimate local purpose; and, if so, (3) whether alternative means could promote this local purpose as well without discriminating against interstate commerce. The burden to show discrimination rests on the party challenging the validity of the statute, but "[w]hen discrimination against commerce . . . is demonstrated, the burden falls on the State to justify it both in terms of the local benefits flowing from the statute and the unavailability of non-discriminatory alternatives adequate to preserve the local interests at stake."

Section 4-115 (B) on its face discriminates against interstate commerce. It forbids the transportation of natural minnows out of the State for purposes of sale, and thus "overtly blocks the flow of interstate commerce at [the] State's borders." Such facial discrimination by itself may be a fatal defect, regardless of the State's purpose, because "the evil of protectionism can reside in legislative means as well as legislative ends." At a minimum such facial discrimination invokes the strictest scrutiny of any purported legitimate local purpose and of the absence of nondiscriminatory alternatives.

Oklahoma argues that 4-115 (B) serves a legitimate local purpose in that it is "readily apparent as a conservation measure." The State's interest in maintaining the ecological balance in state waters by avoiding the removal of inordinate numbers of minnows may well qualify as a legitimate local purpose. We consider the State's interests in conservation and protection of wild animals as legitimate local purposes similar to the States' interests in protecting the health and safety of their citizens. But the scope of legitimate state interests in "conservation" is narrower under this analysis than it was under Geer. A State may no longer "keep the property, if the sovereign so chooses, always within its jurisdiction for every purpose." The fiction of state ownership may no longer be used to force those outside the State to bear the full costs of "conserving" the wild animals within its borders when equally effective nondiscriminatory conservation measures are available.

Far from choosing the least discriminatory alternative, Oklahoma has chosen to "conserve" its minnows in the way that most overtly discriminates against interstate commerce. The State places no limits on the numbers of minnows that can be taken by licensed minnow dealers; nor does it limit in any way how these minnows may be disposed of within the State. Yet it forbids the transportation of any commercially significant number of natural minnows out of the State for sale. Section 4-115 (B) is certainly not a "last ditch" attempt at conservation after nondiscriminatory alternatives have proved unfeasible. It is rather a choice of the most discriminatory means even though nondiscriminatory alternatives would seem likely to fulfill the State's purported legitimate local purpose more effectively.

We therefore hold that 4-115 (B) is repugnant to the Commerce Clause....

MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE joins, dissenting.

...Because I disagree with the Court's overruling of Geer and holding that Oklahoma's law relating to the sale of minnows violates the Commerce Clause, I dissent.

In its headlong rush to overrule Geer, the Court characterizes that decision as "rest[ing] on the holding that no interstate commerce was involved."  It is true that one of the rationales relied on by the Geer Court was that the State could exercise its power to control the killing and ownership of animals ferae naturae to prohibit such game from leaving the borders of the State and thus prevent the game from ever becoming the objects of interstate commerce. Since the Court in Geer was of the view that the challenged statute effectively prevented certain game from entering the stream of interstate commerce, there could be no basis for a Commerce Clause challenge to the State's law. I do not dispute the Court's rejection of this theory; as the Court points out, this rationale was rejected long before today.... It is obvious that the Court has simply set this theory up as a sort of strawman to facilitate the toppling of a decision which, in other respects, enunciates principles that have remained valid and vital, albeit somewhat refined, at least until today....

This Court long has recognized that the ownership language of Geer and similar cases is simply a shorthand way of describing a State's substantial interest in preserving and regulating the exploitation of the fish and game and other natural resources within its boundaries for the benefit of its citizens. In recognition of this important state interest, the Court has upheld a variety of regulations designed to conserve and maintain the natural resources of a State. To be sure, a State's power to preserve and regulate wildlife within its borders is not absolute. But the State is accorded wide latitude in fashioning regulations appropriate for protection of its wildlife. Unless the regulation directly conflicts with a federal statute or treaty, allocates access in a manner that violates the Fourteenth Amendment, or represents a naked attempt to discriminate against out-of-state enterprises in favor of in-state businesses unrelated to any purpose of conservation, the State's special interest in preserving its wildlife  should prevail. And this is true no matter how "Balkanized" the resulting pattern of commercial activity....

Oklahoma does regulate the manner in which both residents and nonresidents procure minnows to be sold outside the State. But there is no showing in this record that requiring appellant to purchase his minnows from hatcheries instead of from persons licensed to seine minnows from the State's waters in any way increase appellant's costs of doing business. There also is nothing in the record to indicate that naturally seined minnows are any more desirable as items of commerce than hatchery minnows. So far as the record before us indicates, hatchery minnows and naturally seined minnows are fungible. Accordingly, any minimal burden that may result from requiring appellant to purchase minnows destined for sale out of state from hatcheries instead of from those licensed to seine minnows is, in my view, more than outweighed by Oklahoma's substantial interest in conserving and regulating exploitation of its natural minnow population.

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