[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] on Wednesday heard oral arguments [day call, PDF; briefs] in Polar Tankers v. City of Valdez [oral arguments transcript, PDF; JURISTreport], where the Court will consider whether a municipal tax that falls exclusively on large vessels in the city’s harbor violates the Tonnage Clause (Art. 1 § 10 cl. 3), the Commerce Clause (Art. 1 § 8 cl. 3), or the 14th Amendment Due Process Clause of the US Constitution [text]. The city of Valdez, Alaska, imposes a tax on oil tankers and other large vessels using its port to pick up and deliver crude oil. The Alaska Supreme Court upheld [opinion, PDF] the tax. Counsel for Polar Tankers argued that, because the tax effectively only targeted these ships, and neither other vessels nor other property, the city had violated constitutional restrictions:

The Valdez vessel tax violates the Constitution's Tonnage Clause because it operates as a charge on a privilege of trading in the port of Valdez, and that tax is apportioned in a way that is guaranteed to tax extraterritorial values and values that do not have a connection to the city. That violates the Due Process and Commerce Clauses.