🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <7tlugm$1ih$1@ultra.sonic.net>,
David Hatunen <hatunen@bolt.sonic.net> wrote:

>It's not a fine.

That's a matter of semantics.  "Import duty" is the most accurate term, but
of course they won't use it since they would have to admit they were violating
the constitution.

>And it doesn't allow exemptions for specific cars. It's
>general thing, and assumes, I would suppose, that in general cars
>will have lower emissions as a group if the equipment were present.

It has nothing to do with reducing emissions.  It's a tax on foreign cars,
nothing more and nothing less.  If they were really concerned about emissions
from foreign cars, they'd either prohibit the cars outright or impose a
prohibitively high tax on their import.  Charging $300 deters no one; it merely
taxes out of state goods unfairly.

>I'm not defending the fee. 

It sure sounds like it.

>I had to pay it myself when I moved here. 

So?

>But if you don't like it you have to take it up with either the
>state legislature or wait for the current litigation to run its
>entire course. My own guess is that the state supremes will uphold
>the law requiring opponents to take it into the federal judicial
>system. My other guess is that the US Supremes will decide it's the
>sort of thing that's best left for the states.

Anyone can guess anything they want, but the whole idea behind the commerce
clause is that ensuring the free flow of goods across state lines is one of
the few things that cannot be entrusted to the states.  If slapping a phony
environmental label on every protectionist policy was all it took to get around
the commerce clause, the clause would have no force at all.

As an aside, your second guess presupposes that your first is right.  If the 
state supremes uphold the ruling in its present form, it will not be appealable
to the U.S. Supremes as it will rest on an independent state ground.