United States v. Lopez and Interstate Commerce Clause

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Article I, Section 8, Clause 3:

[The Congress shall have Power . . . ] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes; . . .

Construing modern interstate Commerce Clause doctrine in its 1995 decision of United States v. Lopez, the Court identified three general categories of commerce that were subject to Congress’s Commerce Clause powers. These are (1) “channels of interstate commerce” ; (2) “instrumentalities of interstate commerce, or persons or things in interstate commerce” ; and (3) “activities having a substantial relation to interstate commerce.” 1 In general, Congress’s authority under the interstate Commerce Clause has expanded since the 1930s because of the volume of interstate commerce and Congress’s ability to regulate intrastate activities that sufficiently affect interstate commerce. In New York v. United States, the Court noted:

[T]he volume of interstate commerce and the range of commonly accepted objects of government regulation have expanded considerably in the last 200 years, and the regulatory authority of Congress has expanded along with them. As interstate commerce has become ubiquitous, activities once considered purely local have come to have effects on the national economy, and have accordingly come within the scope of Congress’s commerce power.2

In addition, the Court has from time-to-time expressly noted that Congress’s exercise of power under the Commerce Clause is akin to the police power exercised by the states.3

1: United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, 558–59 (1995) (citations omitted).
2: New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144, 158 (1992).
3: E.g., Brooks v. United States, 267 U.S. 432, 436–437 (1925); United States v. Darby, 312 U.S. 100, 114 (1941).