United Haulers Association, Inc. v. Oneida-Herkimer Solid Waste Management Authority
Supreme Court rejects claim by waste management companies and haulers that local solid waste disposal ordinances violate the Commerce Clause
Status: Final
Discussion & Analysis: In 1989 and 1990, two New York counties adopted “flow-control” ordinances requiring waste haulers to deliver solid waste and recyclables solely to processing facilities managed and operated by the counties’ waste management authority. In response, the United Waste Haulers Association sued the waste management authority, alleging that the flow-control laws violated the dormant Commerce Clause by impermissibly discriminating against interstate commerce.
A federal district court struck down the ordinances, relying on the 1994 Supreme Court ruling in C & A Carbone, Inc. v. Town of Clarkstown. The Second Circuit reversed, finding a crucial distinction between laws that benefit public facilities and laws that benefit private facilities. The Supreme Court agreed, upholding the flow-control ordinance in a 6-3 decision.
Like the Second Circuit, the Supreme Court focused on the distinction between flow-control laws favoring publicly owned waste facilities (at issue here) and those favoring privately owned waste facilities (as in the earlier Carbone case). Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the majority, found this difference to be “constitutionally significant.” Recognizing that waste removal is traditionally a “local governmental function,” the Court reasoned that laws favoring local governments, unlike those simply designed to favor in-state business, may legitimately be directed toward goals unrelated to economic protectionism. Here, the Court found that the ordinances represented a legitimate exercise of the state’s police powers to address waste problems and to protect the health, safety, and welfare of its citizens, and thus did not discriminate against interstate commerce. The Court emphasized that any incidental harm caused by the ordinances was likely to fall on the very people who voted for them, rather than on out-of-state interests. Finally, the Chief Justice applied the Pike balancing test (used to determine whether a law that regulates even-handedly is nonetheless impermissible) and concluded, along with Justices Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, that any arguable burden the ordinances impose “does not exceed the public benefits of the ordinances.”
Justices Scalia and Thomas each filed separate opinions concurring in part. Justice Scalia once again wholly rejected the Court’s application of the Pike balancing test, stating that balancing values is Congress’ job, “which is precisely what the Commerce Clause envisions.” Justice Thomas called for the elimination of the dormant Commerce Clause doctrine altogether.
In the dissent, Justice Alito, joined by Justices Stevens and Kennedy, found no practical difference between the facts in Carbone and in United Haulers, and characterized the “public-private distinction drawn by the court…[as] both illusory and without precedent.”
Since Carbone was decided thirteen years ago, federal courts have disagreed about what kinds of flow-control ordinances violate the dormant Commerce Clause. United Haulers marks a substantial change in the Supreme Court’s dormant Commerce Clause jurisprudence, upholding a solid-waste flow-control law for the first time. The decision also answers an important question left open by Carbone: whether the distinction between laws benefiting public waste facilities, as opposed to private ones, makes a constitutional difference. The Court’s affirmative answer to this question suggests that it may be moving toward a less restrictive interpretation of the dormant Commerce Clause, whereby states may exercise their police powers over solid waste so long as their motivations are not based on economic protectionism.
Key Opinion: United Haulers Association v. Oneida-Herkimer Waste Management Authority, 127 S.Ct. 1786 (2007).
See Also: C & A Carbone, Inc. v. Town of Clarkstown, 511 U.S. 383 (1994).
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