secure employment either because of their lack of education and job training or because of their geographical remoteness from job opportunities; 10 and that the employment of nonresidents threatened to deny jobs to Alaska residents only to the extent that jobs for which untrained residents were being prepared might be filled by nonresidents before the residents' training was completed.

Moreover, even if the State's showing is accepted as sufficient to indicate that nonresidents were "a peculiar source of evil," Toomer and Mullaney compel the conclusion that Alaska Hire nevertheless fails to pass constitutional muster. For the discrimination the Act works against nonresidents does not bear a substantial relationship to the particular "evil" they are said to present. Alaska Hire simply grants all Alaskans, regardless of their employment status, education, or training, a flat employment preference for all jobs covered by the Act. A highly skilled and educated resident who has never been unemployed is entitled to precisely the same preferential treatment as the unskilled, habitually unemployed Arctic Eskimo enrolled in a job-training program. If

10 For example, a report quoted in the State's Memorandum in Opposition to Plaintiffs' Motion for Partial Preliminary Injunction and Second Motion for Preliminary Injunction, Record 58, observed:

"The skill levels of in-migrants and seasonal workers are generally higher than those of the unemployed or under-employed resident workers. Their ability to command jobs in Alaska is a sympton of, rather than the cause of conditions resulting in high unemployment rates, particularly among Alaska Natives. Those who need the jobs the most tend to be undereducated, untrained, or living in areas of the state remote from job opportunities. Unless unemployed residents-most of whom are Eskimos and Indians have access to job markets and receive the education and training required to fit them into Alaska's increasingly technological economy and unless there is a restructuring of labor demands, new jobs will continue to be filled by persons from other states who have the necessary qualifications." Federal Field Committee for Development Planning in Alaska, Economic Outlook for Alaska 311-312 (1971) (emphasis added; footnote omitted).

Alaska is to attempt to ease its unemployment problem by forcing employers within the State to discriminate against nonresidents again, a policy which may present serious constitutional questions-the means by which it does so must be more closely tailored to aid the unemployed the Act is intended to benefit. Even if a statute granting an employment preference to unemployed residents or to residents enrolled in job-training programs might be permissible, Alaska Hire's across-the-board grant of a job preference to all Alaskan residents clearly is not.

Relying on McCready v. Virginia, 94 U. S. 391 (1877), however, Alaska contends that because the oil and gas that are the subject of Alaska Hire are owned by the State," this ownership, of itself, is sufficient justification for the Act's discrimination against nonresidents, and takes the Act totally without the scope of the Privileges and Immunities Clause. As the State sees it "the privileges and immunities clause [does] not apply, and was never meant to apply, to decisions by the states as to how they would permit, if at all, the use and distribution of the natural resources which they own... Brief for Appellees 20 n. 14. We do not agree that the fact that a State owns a resource, of itself, completely removes a law concerning that resource from the prohibitions of the Clause. Although some courts, including the court below, have read McCready as creating an "exception" to the Privileges and Immunities Clause, we have just recently confirmed that "[i]n more recent years. . . the Court has recognized

11 At the time Alaska was admitted into the Union on January 3, 1959, 99% of all land within Alaska's borders was owned by the Federal Government. In becoming a State, Alaska was granted and became entitled to select approximately 103 million acres of those federal lands. Alaska Statehood Law, 72 Stat. 340, § 6, note preceding 48 U. S. C. § 21. The selection process is not yet complete, but since 1959 large portions of land have been conveyed to the State, in fee, by the Federal Government. Full title to those lands and to the minerals on and below them is vested in the State. 72 Stat. 342, § 6 (i), note preceding 48 U. S. C. § 21.

that the States' interest in regulating and controlling those things they claim to 'own' . . . is by no means absolute." Baldwin v. Montana Fish and Game Comm'n, 436 U. S., at 385. Rather than placing a statute completely beyond the Clause, a State's ownership of the property with which the statute is concerned is a factor-although often the crucial factor-to be considered in evaluating whether the statute's discrimination against noncitizens violates the Clause. Dispositive though this factor may be in many cases in which a State discriminates against nonresidents, it is not dispositive here.

The reason is that Alaska has little or no proprietary interest in much of the activity swept within the ambit of Alaska Hire; and the connection of the State's oil and gas with much of the covered activity is sufficiently attenuated so that it cannot justifiably be the basis for requiring private employers to discriminate against nonresidents. The extensive reach of Alaska Hire is set out in Alaska Stat. Ann. § 38.40.050 (a) (1977). That section provides:

"The provisions of this chapter apply to all employment which is a result of oil and gas leases, easements, leases or right-of-way permits for oil or gas pipeline purposes, unitization agreements [12] or any renegotiation of any of the preceding to which the state is a party after July 7, 1972; however, the activity which generates the employment must take place inside the state and it must

12 The term "unitization agreement" is not defined in the Act. Alaska's Commissioner of Natural Resources gave the following definition of the

term:

"Well, unitization agreement is an agreement between the operators and any given oil field as to the equity that each of them would have with respect to the oil and gas resources in that field. And in some cases that word is used to also include something called the 'Plan of Operations', which sets out the way in which an oil field or gas field would be operated pursuant to the State's conservation laws." Deposition of Guy R. Martin in No. 3025 (Sup. Ct. Alaska), p. 5.

take place either on the property under the control of the person subject to this chapter or be directly related to activity taking place on the property under his control and the activity must be performed directly for the person subject to this chapter or his contractor or a subcontractor of his contractor or a supplier of his contractor or subcontractor." (Emphasis added.)

Under this provision, Alaska Hire extends to employers who have no connection whatsoever with the State's oil and gas, perform no work on state land, have no contractual relationship with the State, and receive no payment from the State. The Act goes so far as to reach suppliers who provide goods or services to subcontractors who, in turn, perform work for contractors despite the fact that none of these employers may themselves have direct dealings with the State's oil and gas or ever set foot on state land.13 Moreover, the Act's coverage is not limited to activities connected with the extraction of Alaska's oil and gas." It encompasses, as emphasized by the dissent below, "employment opportunities at refineries and in distribution systems utilizing oil and gas obtained under Alaska leases." 565 P. 2d, at 171. The only limit of any consequence on the Act's reach is the requirement that "the

18 According to one of the administrative regulations implementing Alaska Hire, "[s]uppliers shall have the same hiring requirements as an employer covered by this chapter, as to that portion of their supply business that is the result of a project or activity of a lessee, contractor or subcontractor." 8 Alaska Admin. Code 35.080 (a) (1977).

14 The Commissioner of Natural Resources expressed this understanding of the scope of the Act:

Mr. Martin: ". . . I think it would cover relationships such as anything on a work pad or an associated construction road or possibly a site for a support camp or construction camp."

Mr. Wagstaff (attorney for appellants): "What about things such as docks if shipping is being used?"

Mr. Martin: "I would think that it could possibly include that." Deposition of Guy R. Martin, supra, at 4.

activity which generates the employment must take place inside the state." Although the absence of this limitation would be noteworthy, its presence hardly is; for it simply prevents Alaska Hire from having what would be the surprising effect of requiring potentially covered out-of-state employers to discriminate against residents of their own State in favor of nonresident Alaskans. In sum, the Act is an attempt to force virtually all businesses that benefit in some way from the economic ripple effect of Alaska's decision to develop its oil and gas resources to bias their employment practices in favor of the State's residents. We believe that Alaska's ownership of the oil and gas that is the subject matter of Alaska Hire simply constitutes insufficient justification for the pervasive discrimination against nonresidents that the Act mandates."

Although appellants raise no Commerce Clause challenge to the Act, the mutually reinforcing relationship between the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Art. IV, § 2, and the Commerce Clause-a relationship that stems from their common

15 Heim v. McCall, 239 U. S. 175 (1915) and Crane v. New York, 239 U. S. 195 (1915)-if they have any remaining vitality, see Sugarman v. Dougall, 413 U. S. 634, 643-645 (1973); C. D. R. Enterprises, Ltd. v. Board of Education, 412 F. Supp. 1164 (EDNY 1976), summarily aff'd sub nom. Lefkowitz v. C. D. R. Enterprises, Ltd., 429 U. S. 1031 (1977)— do not suggest otherwise. In those cases, a New York statute that limited employment "in the construction of public works" to United States citizens and also required that an employment preference be given to New York citizens in such projects was upheld against challenges under both the Constitution and the Treaty of 1871 with Italy. Although the Art. IV, § 2, Privileges and Immunities Clause, along with the Due Process, Equal Protection, and Privileges and Immunities Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, was listed as one of the constitutional bases for attacking the statute, no out-of-state United States citizen challenged the law. As a consequence, both the appellants and the Court were concerned almost exclusively with the statute's discrimination against resident aliens. This was reflected in the Court's holding, which was limited to the Fourteenth Amendment and Treaty challenges and expressed no view on appellants' passing Art. IV, § 2, privileges and immunities claim.