City of Philadelphia v. New Jersey

A New Jersey law prohibits the importation of most “solid or liquid waste which originated or was collected outside the territorial limits of the State . . . In this case we are required to decide whether this statutory prohibition violates the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution.

I

The statutory provision in question is ch. 363 of 1973 N. J. Laws, which took effect in early 1974. In pertinent part it provides:

“No person shall bring into this State any solid or liquid waste which originated or was collected outside the territorial limits of the State, except garbage to be fed to…