Cite as: 598 U. S. ____ (2023)
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Syllabus
Petitioners further insist that Proposition 12 offends this “almost per se” rule because the law will impose substantial new costs on out-of-state pork producers who wish to sell their products in California. Petitioners contend the rule they propose follows ineluctably from three cases: Healy v. Beer Institute, 491 U. S. 324; Brown-Forman Distillers Corp. v. New York State Liquor Authority, 476 U. S. 573; and Baldwin v. G. A. F. Seelig, Inc., 294 U. S. 511. But a close look at those cases reveals that each typifies the familiar concern with preventing purposeful discrimination against out-of-state economic interests. In Baldwin, a New York law that barred out-of-state dairy farmers from selling their milk in the State for less than the minimum price New York law guaranteed in-state producers “plainly discriminate[d]” against out-of-staters by “erecting an economic barrier protecting a major local industry against competition from without the State.” Dean Milk Co. v. Madison, 340 U. S. 349, 354 (discussing Baldwin). In Brown-Forman, a New York law that required liquor distillers to affirm that their in-state prices were no higher than their out-of-state prices impermissibly sought to force out-of-state distillers to “surrender” whatever cost advantages they enjoyed against their in-state rivals, which amounted to economic protectionism. 476 U. S., at 580.
The Court reached a similar conclusion in Healy, which involved a Connecticut law that required out-of-state beer merchants to affirm that their in-state prices were no higher than those they charged in neighboring States. 491 U. S., at 328–330. As the Court later explained, “[t]he essential vice in laws” like Connecticut’s is that they “hoard” commerce “for the benefit of” in-state merchants and discourage consumers from crossing state lines to make their purchases from nearby out-of-state vendors. C & A Carbone, Inc. v. Clarkstown, 511 U. S. 383, 391–392.
Petitioners insist that Baldwin, Brown-Forman, and Healy taken together suggest an “almost per se” rule against state laws with “extraterritorial effects.” While petitioners point to language in these cases pertaining to the “practical effect” of the challenged laws on out-of-state commerce and prices, “the language of an opinion is not always to be parsed as though we were dealing with language of a statute.” Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., 442 U. S. 330, 341. The language highlighted by petitioners in Baldwin, Brown-Forman, and Healy appeared in a particular context and did particular work. A close look at those cases reveals nothing like the “almost per se” rule against laws that have the “practical effect” of “controlling” extraterritorial commerce that petitioners posit, and indeed petitioners’ reading would cast a shadow over laws long understood to represent valid exercises of the States’ constitutionally reserved powers. Baldwin, Brown-Forman, and Healy did not mean to do so much. In rejecting petitioners’ “almost per se” theory
