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22 Clause.

This Court found the allegations in Exxon’s complaint insufficient as a matter of law to demonstrate a substantial burden on interstate commerce. Without question, Maryland’s law favored one business structure (independent gas station retailers) over another (vertically integrated production and retail firms). Ibid. The law also promised to increase retail gas prices for Maryland consumers, allowing some to question its “wisdom.” Id., at 124, 128. But, the Court found, Exxon failed to plead facts leading, “either logically or as a practical matter, to [the] conclusion that the State [was] discriminating against interstate commerce.” Id., at 125. The company failed to do so because, on its face, Maryland’s law welcomed competition from interstate retail gas station chains that did not produce petroleum. Id., at 125–126. And as far as anyone could tell, the law’s “practical effect” wasn’t to protect in-state producers; it was to shift market share from one set of out-of-state firms (vertically integrated businesses) to another (retail gas station firms). Id., at 125, 127. This Court squarely rejected the view that this predicted “ ‘change [in] the market structure’ ” would “impermissibly burde[n] interstate commerce.” Id., at 127. If the dormant Commerce Clause protects the “interstate market … from prohibitive or burdensome regulations,” the Court held, it does not protect “particular … firms” or “particular structure[s] or methods of operation.” Id., at 127–128.

If Maryland’s law did not impose a sufficient burden on interstate commerce to warrant further scrutiny, the same must be said for Proposition 12. In Exxon, vertically integrated businesses faced a choice: They could divest their production capacities or withdraw from the local retail market. Here, farmers and vertically integrated processors have at least as much choice: They may provide all their pigs the space the law requires; they may segregate their operations to ensure pork products entering California