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If Justice Scalia agreed, he would've joined the majority opinion and then wrote a separate concurrence to lay out his own view. But he didn't. His concurrence was a concurrence in judgment only.
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I think Scalia knows that Wickard is radioactive to conservatives, and wanted an opinion in this case that relied on it as little as possible.
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Originally Posted by Scalia
I write separately because my understanding of the doctrinal foundation on which that holding rests is, if not inconsistent with that of the Court, at least more nuanced.
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It is not only not inconsistent with the Court, it absolutely depends on Wickard every bit as much as Stevens' opinion.
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Originally Posted by Scalia
...this Court has acknowledged since at least United States v. Coombs, 12 Pet. 72 (1838), Congress’s regulatory authority over intrastate activities that are not themselves part of interstate commerce (including activities that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce) derives from the Necessary and Proper Clause.
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OK, so why is it "necessary" that Congress regulate intrastate, non-commercial things like homegrown wheat, cannabis plants, or machine guns? Because they substantially affect interstate commerce. Remove the Wickard precedent, and where is that argument? Nowhere. His argument falls apart without Wickard, which is why he cited it. He buried it in a footnote because he wanted to leave the impression that it's all about the necessary and proper clause (a part of the Constitution) and not about a New Deal interpretation involving substantial effects (nowhere in the Constitution), but that's nonsense.
Nuanced indeed. More like a derivative of Stevens' argument, all packaged up so as to not scare or offend conservatives by having the word "Wickard" appear in every paragraph.