By Blake Hudson

Scholars continue to debate the scope of Congress’s Commerce Clause authority and whether fluctuations in the U.S. Supreme Court’s Commerce Clause jurisprudence place federal environmental regulatory authority at risk. Yet when one analyzes major Commerce Clause cases involving resource regulation since the beginning of the modern regulatory state, a consistent theme emerges: both the Supreme Court and Circuit Courts of Appeals have consistently upheld federal authority to regulate depletable natural resources, the appropriation of which is non-excludable — key characteristics of a commons. Commerce Clause jurisprudence can be interpreted as treating appropriation of this natural capital, here described as “privatized commons resources,” as fundamentally meeting the third test for determining the validity of federal legislation under the Commerce Clause — the “substantial effects” test. Using commons analysis to meet the substantial effects test has the potential to provide a unified theory of federal environmental regulatory authority under the Commerce Clause, a clearer statement of the jurisprudential approach in environmental cases, and more certainty and effectiveness in environmental and natural resources legislation. Commons analysis also assists in answering persistent questions arising in Commerce Clause cases, including when the “aggregation principle” may be invoked to find substantial effects on interstate commerce, what the “object of regulation” is in environmental Commerce Clause cases, and what the proper scope of federal Commerce Clause authority is given constitutional federalism limitations.

Cite as: Blake Hudson, Commerce in the Commons: A Unified Theory of Natural Capital Regulation Under the Commerce Clause, 35 Harv. Envtl. L. Rev. 375 (2011).

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