Page:United States Reports 502 OCT. TERM 1991.pdf/630

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

472

WYOMING v. OKLAHOMA Scalia, J., dissenting

“may be” adversely affected because its revenue collections “could [be] reduce[d].” Id., at 345. I hardly think that musings of this sort are grounds for disregarding the obvious application of the zone-of-interests test to the present case— particularly as the Court in Hunt did not purport to be applying that test. The dicta in Hunt, moreover, were applying a since-repudiated understanding of the purpose of the standing requirement. Compare the last sentence of the passage quoted by the Court (taking the purpose to be “to ‘assure that concrete adverseness which sharpens the presentation of issues . . . ,’ ” ibid., quoting Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, 204 (1962)), with Allen, 468 U. S., at 750–752 (asserting that standing performs a separation-of-powers function, restricting the courts to their traditional role). Of course, if the state interest in collecting severance taxes does fall within the zone of interests of the Commerce Clause, so must every other state taxing interest. The zone-of-interest test, as opposed to the injury-in-fact requirement, turns on the type of interest asserted and not on its speculativeness or its degree of attenuation from its alleged source. The injury-in-fact requirement, of course, will still remain—but if and when de facto causality can be established, every diminution of state revenue attributable to the allegedly unconstitutional commercial regulation of a sister State will now be the basis for a lawsuit. Suits based on loss of sales tax revenue ought to become a regular phenomenon, since it is no more difficult to show that an automatic sales tax was lost on a particular sale than it is to show that the severance tax was lost here. Further expansions of standing (or irrational distinctions) lurk just around the corner: If a State has a litigable interest in the taxes that would have been paid upon an unconstitutionally obstructed sale, there is no reasonable basis for saying that a company salesman does not have a litigable interest in the commissions that would have been paid, or a union in the wages that would have been earned.