502US2$28D 02-10-99 15:12:54 PAGES OPINPGT
458
WYOMING v. OKLAHOMA Opinion of the Court
fuel transporter, and 2) conserving needed low-sulfur coal for the future.” Brief for Oklahoma 65. Even if the Act is accepted as part of the State’s rate-regulating authority, we cannot accept the submission that it is exempt from scrutiny under the Commerce Clause. Congress must manifest its unambiguous intent before a federal statute will be read to permit or to approve such a violation of the Commerce Clause as Oklahoma here seeks to justify. Maine v. Taylor, supra, at 139; South-Central Timber Development, Inc. v. Wunnicke, 467 U. S. 82, 91 (1984). We have already examined § 824(b)(1) in New England Power Co. v. New Hampshire, 455 U. S. 331 (1982), and found nothing in the statute or legislative history “evinc[ing] a congressional intent ‘to alter the limits of state power otherwise imposed by the Commerce Clause.’ ” Id., at 341 (quoting United States v. Public Utilities Comm’n of Cal., 345 U. S. 295, 304 (1953)). There is no hint in that opinion, as suggested by Oklahoma, that a partial—instead of total—ban would have been permissible, or that in-state purchasing quotas imposed on utilities in an effort to regulate utility rates are within the “lawful authority” of the States under § 824(b)(1). Instead, our decision turned on the recognition that “Congress did no more than leave standing whatever valid state laws then existed relating to the exportation of hydroelectric energy; by its plain terms, [§ 824(b)] simply saves from pre-emption under Part II of the Federal Power Act such state authority as was otherwise ‘lawful.’ ” New England Power Co., supra, at 341. Our decisions have uniformly subjected Commerce Clause cases implicating the Federal Power Act to scrutiny on the merits. See, e. g., New England Power Co., supra; Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corp. v. Arkansas Pub. Serv. Comm’n, 461 U. S. 375, 393 (1983). We need say no more to conclude that Oklahoma has not met its burden of demonstrating a clear and unambiguous intent on behalf of Congress to permit the discrimination against interstate commerce occurring here. In light of the
