Page:United States Reports 502 OCT. TERM 1991.pdf/617

 502US2$28D 02-10-99 15:12:54 PAGES OPINPGT

Cite as: 502 U. S. 437 (1992)

459

Opinion of the Court

foregoing, we adopt the Special Master’s conclusion that the Act manifests fatal defects under the Commerce Clause. IV Finally, we address a question of severability raised in the exceptions filed by Wyoming to the Special Master’s Report. The GRDA is an agency of the State of Oklahoma, and, as such, Oklahoma acts as a market participant in directing its purchases of coal. We have recognized that the Commerce Clause does not restrict the State’s action as a free market participant. Reeves, Inc. v. Stake, 447 U. S. 429, 436–437 (1980); Hughes v. Alexandria Scrap Corp., 426 U. S. 794, 806–810 (1976). The Special Master recommends that the market-participant exception is available to Oklahoma, but only if the application of the Act to the GRDA may be considered separately, or severed, from its application to the three private utilities. As the determination of severability will in this situation be one of state law, Hooper v. Bernalillo County Assessor, 472 U. S. 612, 624 (1985), the Special Master recommends that we enter judgment with respect to the three private utilities but dismiss Wyoming’s complaint as it relates to the GRDA without prejudice to the right of Wyoming to reassert the claim in an “appropriate forum.” Report of Special Master 32. We sustain Wyoming’s exception to these recommendations of the Special Master. This action is one between two States presented under our original jurisdiction; this Court is the appropriate forum to decide issues necessary to afford the complaining State complete relief. Cf. Dorchy v. Kansas, 264 U. S. 286, 291 (1924). We deem it proper and advisable to address the issue of severability ourselves. In the alternative, the Special Master looked to Oklahoma law and found the Act severable as to the GRDA, a conclusion with which we disagree. It is true that Oklahoma courts have held that valid portions of a statute are severable “ ‘unless it is evident that the Legislature would not