CSX Transportation, Inc. v. Georgia State Board of Equalization

(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2007 1

Syllabus

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is

being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.

The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been

prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.

See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Syllabus

CSX TRANSPORTATION, INC. v. GEORGIA STATE

BOARD OF EQUALIZATION ET AL.

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR

THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

No. 06–1287. Argued November 5, 2007—Decided December 4, 2007

Under Georgia law, most commercial and industrial property is valued

locally by county boards for tax purposes, but public utilities such as

petitioner railroad (CSX) are initially valued by the State. In 2002,

respondent Georgia state board used a different combination of

methodologies than it had in 2001 to determine that the market

value of CSX’s in-state real property had increased 47 percent, result

ing in a significantly higher ad valorem tax levy. CSX filed suit un

der the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act of 1976

(4–R Act or Act), which bars States from, inter alia, “[a]ssess[ing] rail

transportation property at a value that has a higher ratio to the

[property’s] true market value . . . than the ratio” between the as

sessed and true market values of other commercial and industrial

property in the same taxing jurisdiction, 49 U. S. C. §11501(b)(1), and

authorizes the federal district court to enjoin the tax if the railroad

ratio exceeds the ratio for other property by at least five percent,

§11501(c). CSX alleged that Georgia had grossly overestimated the

market value of its in-state rail property while accurately valuing

other commercial and industrial property in the State, so that CSX’s

property was taxed at a ratio of assessed-to-market value considera

bly more than 5 percent greater than the same ratio for the other in

state property. Ruling that Georgia had not discriminated against

CSX in violation of the 4–R Act because the State had used widely

accepted valuation methods to arrive at its 2002 estimate of true

market value, the District Court declared that the Act does not allow

a railroad to challenge a State’s chosen methodology if it is rational

and not motivated by discriminatory intent. The Eleventh Circuit

panel affirmed, reasoning that the Act does not clearly state that

2 CSX TRANSP., INC. v. GEORGIA STATE BD. OF

EQUALIZATION

Syllabus

railroads may challenge valuation methodologies, and that such a

clear statement was required in light of the intrusion on state taxing

prerogatives.

Held: The 4–R Act allows a railroad to attempt to show that state meth

ods for determining the value of railroad property result in a dis

criminatory determination of true market value. Pp. 5–12.

(a) The Act’s language is clear. States may not tax railroad prop

erty at a ratio of assessed-to-true-market value higher than the ratio

for other commercial and industrial property in the same jurisdiction.

To apply the Act, district courts must calculate the true market value

of in-state railroad property. A court cannot undertake the compari

son of ratios the statute requires without that figure at hand, see

Burlington Northern R. Co. v. Oklahoma Tax Comm’n, 481 U. S. 454,

461, and the determination of true market value may be affected by

the State’s choice of valuation methods. Georgia’s argument that

valuation methodologies must be distinguished from their applica

tion, and that the Act allows courts to question only the latter, is re

jected. There is no distinction between method and application in the

Act’s language and no passage limiting district court factfinding as

the State proposes. Georgia’s position is untenable given the way

market value is calculated. Valuation is not a matter of mathemat

ics, but an applied science, even a craft. Most appraisers estimate

market value by employing not one methodology but a combination

because no one approach is entirely accurate, at least in the absence

of an established market for the type of property at issue. The indi

vidual methods yield sometimes more, sometimes less reliable results

depending on the peculiar features of the property evaluated. Given

the extent to which the chosen methods can affect the determination

of value, preventing courts from scrutinizing state valuation method

ologies would render §11501 a largely empty command, forcing dis

trict courts to accept as “true” the market value estimate of the State,

one of the parties to the litigation. States, in turn, would be free to

employ appraisal techniques that routinely overestimate the market

worth of railroad assets. By then levying taxes based on those over

estimates, States could implement the very discriminatory taxation

Congress sought to eradicate. Courts would be powerless to stop

them, and the Act would ultimately guarantee railroads nothing

more than mathematically accurate discriminatory taxation.

The State’s warning that allowing railroads to introduce their own

valuation estimates based on different methodologies will inevitably

lead to a futile clash of experts, which courts will have no reasonable

way to settle, is not compelling, given that Congress was not simi

larly troubled. Rather, Congress directed courts to find true market

value, however elusive, making that value the objective benchmark

Cite as: 552 U. S. ____ (2007) 3

Syllabus

for courts’ evaluation. Property valuation, though admittedly com

plex, is at bottom just “an issue of fact about possible market prices,”

Suitum v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 520 U. S. 725, 741, an is

sue district courts are used to addressing. In light of the statute’s di

rective making true market value a factual question to be determined

by the district court, what Georgia really seeks is to limit the types of

evidence courts may consider as part of their factual inquiry. Had

Congress intended to impose such a limit, it could easily have in

cluded language insulating the State’s chosen methodologies from ju

dicial scrutiny. It did not. Pp. 5–9.

(b) The State argues that any interpretation of the Act allowing

courts to question state valuation methods ignores the background

principles of federalism against which the statute was enacted. Even

if important state policy questions are intertwined with the selection

of a valuation methodology, however, Congress clearly permitted

courts to question such methodologies when it banned discriminatory

assessment ratios and made true market value a question to be liti

gated in federal court. Department of Revenue of Ore. v. ACF Indus

tries, Inc., 510 U. S. 332, 343–344, distinguished. The Court also dis

agrees with Georgia’s claim that the Court’s interpretation will

destroy the States’ discretion to choose their own valuation method

ologies. A State may use whatever method it likes, so long as the re

sult is not discriminatory in violation of the Act. Pp. 9–12.

472 F. 3d 1281, reversed.

ROBERTS, C. J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.

Cite as: 552 U. S. ____ (2007) 1

Opinion of the Court

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the

preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to

notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash

ington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order

that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

_________________

No. 06–1287

_________________

CSX TRANSPORTATION, INC., PETITIONER v.

GEORGIA STATE BOARD OF

EQUALIZATION ET AL.

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF

APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

[December 4, 2007]

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the

Court.

The Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act

prohibits States from discriminating against railroads by

taxing railroad property more heavily than other commer

cial property in the State. Two decades ago, we held that

this statute permits an aggrieved railroad to challenge a

State’s valuation of its property for tax purposes. Burling

ton Northern R. Co. v. Oklahoma Tax Comm’n, 481 U. S.

454, 462 (1987). Because the railroad in that case chal

lenged only the State’s application of its valuation meth

ods, we expressly reserved the question whether a railroad

may challenge the State’s methods themselves. We an

swer that question today, and hold that railroads may

challenge state methods for determining the value of

railroad property, as well as how those methods are ap

plied. The statute provides for nothing less.

I

Congress enacted the Railroad Revitalization and Regu

2 CSX TRANSP., INC. v. GEORGIA STATE BD. OF

EQUALIZATION

Opinion of the Court

latory Reform Act in 1976. 90 Stat. 31.1 Called the “4–R

Act” for brevity, the law aimed to halt the economic de

cline of the rail industry by, among other means, barring

“discriminatory state taxation of railroad property.” Bur

lington Northern, supra, at 457; see also Department of

Revenue of Ore. v. ACF Industries, Inc., 510 U. S. 332, 336

(1994). The 4–R Act prohibits four separate forms of

discriminatory state taxation of railroads.2 Only the first

is at issue here: States, the Act provides, may not “[a]ssess

rail transportation property at a value that has a higher

ratio to the [property’s] true market value . . . than the

ratio” between the assessed and true market values of

other commercial and industrial property in the same

taxing jurisdiction. 49 U. S. C. §11501(b)(1). If the rail

road ratio exceeds the ratio for other property by at least

five percent, the district court may enjoin the tax.

——————

1 The portion of the Act that concerns us here, Section 306, was origi

nally codified at 49 U. S. C. §26c (1976 ed.). In 1978, Congress recodi

fied it at 49 U. S. C. §11503 (1976 ed., Supp. II). Congress recodified it

again in 1995, without substantive change, this time as §11501. For

convenience, all references to the statute are to the text of §11501.

2 Section 11501 reads, in relevant part:

“(b) The following acts unreasonably burden and discriminate

against interstate commerce, and a State, subdivision of a State, or

authority acting for a State or subdivision of a State may not do any of

them:

“(1) Assess rail transportation property at a value that has a higher

ratio to the true market value of the rail transportation property than

the ratio that the assessed value of other commercial and industrial

property in the same assessment jurisdiction has to the true market

value of the other commercial and industrial property.

“(2) Levy or collect a tax on an assessment that may not be made

under paragraph (1) of this subsection.

“(3) Levy or collect an ad valorem property tax on rail transportation

property at a tax rate that exceeds the tax rate applicable to commer

cial and industrial property in the same assessment jurisdiction.

“(4) Impose another tax that discriminates against a rail carrier

providing transportation subject to the jurisdiction of the Board under

this part.”

Cite as: 552 U. S. ____ (2007) 3

Opinion of the Court

§11501(c).3

Petitioner CSX Transportation, Inc., is a freight rail

carrier with multiple routes across the State of Georgia.

As a consequence, it is subject to Georgia’s ad valorem tax

on real property. Under Georgia law, most commercial

and industrial property is valued locally by county boards.

Public utilities such as railroads, however, are initially

valued by the State, which then certifies the proposed

valuations to the county boards for adoption or alteration.

In 2001, Georgia’s State Board of Equalization, a respon

dent here, put CSX’s ad valorem tax liability at $4.6 mil

lion. A year later, the State’s appraiser used a different

combination of methodologies to determine the market

——————

3 Section 11501(c) provides:

“Notwithstanding section 1341 of title 28 and without regard to the

amount in controversy or citizenship of the parties, a district court of

the United States has jurisdiction, concurrent with other jurisdiction of

courts of the United States and the States, to prevent a violation of

subsection (b) of this section. Relief may be granted under this subsec

tion only if the ratio of assessed value to true market value of rail

transportation property exceeds by at least 5 percent the ratio of

assessed value to true market value of other commercial and industrial

property in the same assessment jurisdiction. The burden of proof in

determining assessed value and true market value is governed by State

law. If the ratio of the assessed value of other commercial and indus

trial property in the assessment jurisdiction to the true market value of

all other commercial and industrial property cannot be determined to

the satisfaction of the district court through the random-sampling

method known as a sales assessment ratio study (to be carried out

under statistical principles applicable to such a study), the court shall

find, as a violation of this section—

“(1) an assessment of the rail transportation property at a value that

has a higher ratio to the true market value of the rail transportation

property than the assessed value of all other property subject to a

property tax levy in the assessment jurisdiction has to the true market

value of all other commercial and industrial property; and

“(2) the collection of an ad valorem property tax on the rail transpor

tation property at a tax rate that exceeds the tax ratio rate applicable

to taxable property in the taxing district.”

4 CSX TRANSP., INC. v. GEORGIA STATE BD. OF

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Opinion of the Court

value of CSX’s in-state property.4 The result was a signifi

cantly higher tax levy. The State estimated the railroad’s

2002 market value at approximately $7.8 billion, 472 F. 3d

1281, 1285 (CA11 2006), a 47 percent increase over the

previous year. That brought the assessed value of CSX’s

Georgia property to $514.9 million, for a final property tax

bill of $6.5 million. Brief for Petitioner 15.

CSX filed suit in the United States District Court for the

Northern District of Georgia, contending that the State’s

2002 tax assessment violated the 4–R Act. The railroad

alleged that Georgia had grossly overestimated the mar

ket value of its in-state property while accurately valuing

other commercial and industrial property in the State.

The result, according to CSX, was that its rail property

was taxed at a ratio of assessed-to-market value consid

erably more than 5 percent greater than the same ratio for

the other property in the State.

To make its case, CSX submitted the testimony of its

own expert appraiser, who relied on a combination of

valuation methods different from those used by the ap

praiser for Georgia. The CSX appraiser calculated the

2002 market value of the railroad’s property to be $6

billion, not the $7.8 billion figure used by the State. 472

F. 3d, at 1285–1286. CSX maintained that the state ap

praiser’s valuation methodologies were flawed, and urged

the District Court to accept the market value estimated by

its expert as more accurate.

——————

4 Georgia assesses public utilities using the “unit rule.” Under this

rule, “an appraiser first determines the value of all assets of an entity,

regardless of location,” then multiplies “by the percentage of the entity

located within [the State] to determine what portion of the value of the

company should be allocated to the state.” 472 F. 3d 1281, 1283 (CA11

2006). The parties agree the unit rule is the appropriate rule for

valuing CSX’s property. There are, however, numerous methods

available to value property under the unit rule, and many of these

methods themselves have multiple variations. See id., at 1284.

Cite as: 552 U. S. ____ (2007) 5

Opinion of the Court

The District Court refused to do so. Following a bench

trial, the court ruled Georgia had not discriminated

against CSX in violation of the 4–R Act because the State

had used widely accepted valuation methods to arrive at

its estimate of true market value. 448 F. Supp. 2d 1330,

1341 (ND Ga. 2005). In the judgment of the District

Court, the Act “does not generally allow a railroad to

challenge the state’s chosen methodology,” as long as the

State’s methods are rational and not motivated by dis

criminatory intent. Ibid.

A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh

Circuit affirmed. 472 F. 3d 1281 (2006). The majority

reasoned that the “text of the Act does not clearly state

that railroads may challenge valuation methodologies,”

and that such a clear statement was required in light of

the intrusion on state taxing prerogatives. Id., at 1289.

Judge Fay dissented. Id., at 1292. Recognizing the divi

sion on this question among the Circuits, compare Con

solidated Rail Corp. v. Hyde Park, 47 F. 3d 473, 481–482

(CA2 1995) (a railroad may challenge a State’s valuation

methodology), and Burlington Northern R. Co. v. Depart

ment of Revenue of Wash., 23 F. 3d 239, 240–241 (CA9

1994) (same), with Chesapeake Western Ry. v. Forst, 938 F.

2d 528, 531 (CA4 1991) (a railroad may not challenge a

State’s valuation methodology), and 472 F. 3d, at 1289

(decision below), we granted certiorari, 550 U. S. ___

(2007), and now reverse.

II

“[T]he language of §1150[1] plainly declares the con

gressional purpose.” Burlington Northern, 481 U. S., at

461. States may not tax railroad property at a ratio of

assessed-to-true-market value higher than the ratio for

other commercial and industrial property in the same

jurisdiction. In order to apply the Act, district courts must

calculate the true market value of in-state railroad prop

6 CSX TRANSP., INC. v. GEORGIA STATE BD. OF

EQUALIZATION

Opinion of the Court

erty. A court cannot undertake the comparison of ratios

the statute requires without that figure at hand. We said

as much in Burlington Northern: “It is clear from [the

Act’s] language that in order to compare the actual as

sessment ratios, it is necessary to determine what the

‘true market values’ are.” Ibid.

We do not see how a court can go about determining

true market value if it may not look behind the State’s

choice of valuation methods. Georgia insists there is a

clear and important distinction between valuation meth

odologies and their application. As the State would have

it, the statute allows courts to question only the latter.

We find no distinction between method and application in

the language of the Act, and see no passage limiting dis

trict court factfinding in the manner the State proposes.

The total lack of textual support for Georgia’s position is

not surprising. The dichotomy the State presses would

eviscerate the statute by forcing courts to defer to the

valuation estimate of the State, when discriminatory

taxation by States was the very evil the Act aimed to ban.

Georgia’s position is untenable given the way market

value is calculated. Valuation is not a matter of mathe

matics, as if the district court could prevent discrimina

tory taxation simply by doublechecking the State’s as

sessment equations. Rather, the calculation of true

market value is an applied science, even a craft. Most

appraisers estimate market value by employing not one

methodology but a combination. These various methods

generate a range of possible market values which the

appraiser uses to derive what he considers to be an accu

rate estimate of market value, based on careful scrutiny of

all the data available. Appraisal Institute, The Appraisal

of Real Estate 49 (12th ed. 2001).

Georgia’s appraiser in the instant case, for example,

used three different valuation techniques—the discounted

cashflow approach, a market multiple approach, and a

Cite as: 552 U. S. ____ (2007) 7

Opinion of the Court

stock and debt approach. He derived five values from

these three methods, ranging from $8.126 billion to

$12.346 billion. After selecting a number at the low end of

the range and then subtracting another $400 million to

account for intangible property not subject to ad valorem

taxation, he settled on $7.8 billion as his final estimate of

the true market value. 472 F. 3d, at 1284–1285.

Appraisers typically employ a combination of methods

because no one approach is entirely accurate, at least in

the absence of an established market for the type of prop

erty at issue. The individual methods yield sometimes

more, sometimes less reliable results depending on the

peculiar features of the property evaluated. As the varia

tion in the state appraiser’s market-value range reveals,

different methods can produce substantially different

estimates. W. Kinnard, Income Property Valuation: Prin

ciples and Techniques of Appraising Income-Producing

Real Estate 52 (1971).

Given the extent to which the chosen methods can affect

the determination of value, preventing courts from scruti

nizing state valuation methodologies would render §11501

a largely empty command. It would force district courts to

accept as “true” the market value estimated by the State,

one of the parties to the litigation. States, in turn, would

be free to employ appraisal techniques that routinely

overestimate the market worth of railroad assets. By then

levying taxes based on those overestimates, States could

implement the very discriminatory taxation Congress

sought to eradicate. On Georgia’s reading of the statute,

courts would be powerless to stop them, and the Act would

ultimately guarantee railroads nothing more than

mathematically accurate discriminatory taxation. We do

not find this interpretation compelling. Instead, we agree

with Judge Fay in dissent below: “Since the objective of

any methodology is a determination of true market value,

a railroad should be allowed to challenge the method[s]

8 CSX TRANSP., INC. v. GEORGIA STATE BD. OF

EQUALIZATION

Opinion of the Court

used [by the State] in an attempt to prove that the result

. . . was not the true market value of its property.” 472

F. 3d, at 1294.

The State agrees that it may not be possible to fix true

market value with any precision. But it draws a different

conclusion from this premise. Because any number of

estimates are plausible, Georgia argues, the court is as

likely to get an accurate result by verifying the application

of the State’s methods—so long as they are broadly rea

sonable—as it is by employing another method altogether.

The State warns that allowing railroads to introduce their

own valuation estimates based on different methodologies

will inevitably lead to a futile clash of experts, which

courts will have no reasonable way to settle. At least one

of the Courts of Appeals shares this concern. See Chesa

peake Western, 938 F. 2d, at 532 (“There is no absolute

way to test the assertions of competing valuations . . .”

(internal quotation marks and brackets omitted)).

Congress was not similarly troubled. It directed courts

to find true market value, however elusive. It made that

value the objective benchmark for courts’ evaluation of

state taxes on railroad property. True market value may

well not be a single, precise number, but Congress obvi

ously believed it was susceptible to judicial inquiry and

that some approximations were better than others.

Georgia’s grim prophecies notwithstanding, the inquiry

the statute mandates is not unfamiliar to courts. Valua

tion of property, though admittedly complex, is at bottom

just “an issue of fact about possible market prices,” Sui

tum v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 520 U. S. 725,

741 (1997), an issue district courts are used to addressing.

Railroad property is not frequently sold, but “determina

tions of market value are routinely made in judicial pro

ceedings without the benefit of a market transaction.” Id.,

at 742. The District Court in this case made clear that it

knew how to find true market value: “In a more typical

Cite as: 552 U. S. ____ (2007) 9

Opinion of the Court

case, the court would look at both [the railroad expert’s]

appraisal and [the State’s] appraisal to determine the true

market value of [the railroad].” 448 F. Supp. 2d, at 1338,

n. 8. It refused to do so not because true market value is

inherently elusive, but because it believed the Act did not

allow it to question the State’s methods.

In light of the statute’s directive making true market

value a factual question to be determined by the district

court, what Georgia is really asking for is a limitation on

the types of evidence courts may consider as part of their

factual inquiry. If Congress had wanted to impose such a

limit by reserving to States the prerogative of selecting

which valuation methods may be used, it surely could

have done so. Out of deference to the States, for example,

§11501(c) provides that “[t]he burden of proof in determin

ing . . . true market value [shall be] governed by State

law.” Congress could easily have included similar lan

guage insulating the State’s chosen methodologies from

judicial scrutiny. It did not. Like Oklahoma’s argument

in Burlington Northern, Georgia’s position in this case

ultimately “depends upon the addition of words to a statu

tory provision which is complete as it stands.” 481 U. S.,

at 463. We decline to find distinctions in the statute

where they do not exist, especially where, as here, those

distinctions would thwart the law’s operation.

III

Considering the clarity of the statute, we are tempted to

leave the discussion at that. “When we find the terms of a

statue unambiguous, judicial inquiry is complete . . . .”

Rubin v. United States, 449 U. S. 424, 430 (1981). Geor

gia, however, lodges two objections to our interpretation,

each of which merits a reply. First, the State argues that

any interpretation of the Act allowing courts to question

state valuation methods ignores the background principles

of federalism against which the statute was enacted. The

10 CSX TRANSP., INC. v. GEORGIA STATE BD. OF

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Opinion of the Court

majority below expressed a similar concern. “The selec

tion of a valuation methodology,” it ruled, “is part of th[e]

fundamental power of a state [to tax],” 472 F. 3d, at 1288,

and should not be limited absent a clear statement from

Congress. We have long held that the means States adopt

to collect their taxes “should be interfered with as little as

possible.” Dows v. Chicago, 11 Wall. 108, 110 (1871). But

we are persuaded that allowing railroads to challenge a

State’s valuation methodologies has been clearly author

ized by the terms of the 4–R Act.

As an initial matter, we question Georgia’s contention

that its selection of valuation methodologies is an impor

tant state policy choice intimately connected to its tax

power. Georgia does not prescribe any particular method

ology as a matter of state law. Its appraisers use different

methodologies in different combinations, as they see fit.

See 472 F. 3d, at 1284–1285 (explaining that the state

appraiser employed multiple methods and selected a value

according to his best judgment). This suit, in fact, is the

result of an individual appraiser’s decision to employ a

different combination of assessment techniques than that

used by his immediate predecessors. The methods he

selected were his choice, not the dictate of any state stat

ute or regulation. Ibid.

But even if important questions of state policy are, as

the Eleventh Circuit believed, “intertwined with the selec

tion of a valuation methodology,” id., at 1288, judicial

scrutiny of those methodologies is authorized by the 4–R

Act’s clear command to find true market value. As we

explained above, the power to calculate true market value

necessarily includes the power to look behind a State’s

valuation methods. That the statute should vest this

authority in the Nation’s courts is hardly surprising, given

Congress’s conclusion that the States were assessing

railroad property unfairly.

Our decision in Department of Revenue of Ore. v. ACF

Cite as: 552 U. S. ____ (2007) 11

Opinion of the Court

Industries, Inc., 510 U. S. 332 (1994), is not to the con

trary. That case concerned a different provision of the 4–R

Act—namely, the command in §11501(b)(4) preventing a

State from “[i]mpos[ing] another tax that discriminates

against a rail carrier providing transportation” in the

taxing jurisdiction. This bar on facially discriminatory

taxes, we held, did not prevent a State from exempting

certain nonrailroad property from otherwise generally

applicable ad valorem taxes. ACF Industries, 510 U. S., at

343. At the time the 4–R Act was adopted, a majority of

States exempted one or more classes of business property

from ad valorem taxation, “including business inventories,

raw materials used in textile manufacturing, . . . and

mechanics tools,” to name just a few. Id., at 344. The

States had provided such property tax exemptions for

years. In the face of this widespread and historical prac

tice, we declined to read the 4–R Act to prohibit a type of

tax exemption the text did not expressly mention. Ibid.

By contrast, we pointedly noted that the Act “prohibit[s]

discriminatory tax rates and assessment ratios in no

uncertain terms . . . and set[s] forth precise standards for

judicial scrutiny of challenged rate and assessment prac

tices.” Id., at 343. Georgia’s claim that court review of

state valuation methodologies is not authorized by a clear

statement in the Act ignores the statute’s explicit prohibi

tion of discriminatory assessment ratios. A district court

cannot accurately calculate or compare those ratios with

out determining true market value. Congress clearly

permitted courts to question state valuation methodologies

when it banned discriminatory assessment ratios and

made true market value a question to be litigated in fed

eral court.

Georgia also protests that our interpretation will de

stroy the States’ discretion to choose their own valuation

methodologies. We disagree. A State may use whatever

method or methods it likes, so long as the result is not

12 CSX TRANSP., INC. v. GEORGIA STATE BD. OF

EQUALIZATION

Opinion of the Court

discriminatory. The Act does not prohibit the use of any

valuation methodology. It prohibits discrimination. Far

from requiring States to follow a particular method, we

hold only that nothing in the statute prevents a railroad

from attempting to show that the methods chosen by the

State result in a discriminatory determination of true

market value.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh

Circuit is reversed.

It is so ordered.