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WYOMING v. OKLAHOMA Scalia, J., dissenting

look to the free competition from every producing area of the Nation to protect him from exploitation.” H. P. Hood & Sons, Inc. v. Du Mond, 336 U. S. 525, 539 (1949). Virtually every one of our cases in this area thus begins its analysis with some form of the incantation that “the very purpose of the Commerce Clause was to create an area of free trade among the several States. . . [and the Clause] by its own force created an area of trade free from interference by the States.” Westinghouse Electric Corp. v. Tully, 466 U. S. 388, 402–403 (1984) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Boston Stock Exchange, supra, at 328; American Trucking Assns., Inc. v. Scheiner, 483 U. S. 266, 280 (1987). Just last Term we said that the negative Commerce Clause “confer[s] a ‘right’ to engage in interstate trade free from restrictive state regulation,” for it “was intended to benefit those who. . . are engaged in interstate commerce.” Dennis v. Higgins, 498 U. S. 439, 448, 449 (1991) (emphasis deleted). The coal companies, of course, would pass the zone-ofinterests test. So would Wyoming if it bought or sold coal, or otherwise directly participated in the coal market. It would then be “asserting [its] right. . . to engage in interstate commerce free of discriminat[ion],” Boston Stock Exchange, supra, at 320–321, n. 3 (emphasis added). But Wyoming’s right to collect taxes presents an entirely different category of interest, only marginally related to the national market/free trade foundation of our jurisprudence in this area; indeed, it is in a sense positively antagonistic to that objective, since all state taxes, even perfectly constitutional ones, burden interstate commerce by reducing profit. Thus, when state taxes have been at issue in our prior negative Commerce Clause cases they have been the object of the plaintiff ’s challenge rather than the basis for his standing; and we have looked upon the State’s interest in tax collection as a value to be weighed against the purposes of our Commerce Clause jurisprudence. Thus, Wyoming’s interest in this case falls far shorter of meeting the zone-of-interests