1. An oil company owning and operating a pipeline through which
it transports to its own refineries for its own refining purposes,
partly across state lines, oil which it purchases from producers at
the mouths of their wells, is an interstate "pipeline company" and
a "common carrier" within the meaning of § 1(1)(b), and (3), of the
Interstate Commerce Act, and, under § 19a(a) and (e), may
constitutionally be required by the Commission to furnish maps,
charts, and schedules of its pipeline properties for use in valuing
such properties under that section. P.
308 U. S.
143.
2. In § 1(b)(3) of the Interstate Commerce Act, which provides
that the term "common carrier" shall include
"all pipeline companies; express companies; sleeping-car
companies, and all persons, natural or artificial, engaged in such
transportation or transmission
Page 308 U. S. 142
as aforesaid as common carriers for hire,"
the final clause is conjunctive, not a modifier, and does not
affect the generality of the first clause as to pipeline companies.
P.
308 U. S.
145.
3. The valuation provisions, § 19a(a) and (e), are so far
separable from the regulatory provisions of the Act that, in a suit
to set aside an order under that section, the question whether the
pipeline owner, if subjected to regulation of its rates, etc., as a
common carrier would be deprived of property without due process
does not properly arise. P.
308 U. S.
146.
4. The validity of the provisions of § 19a(a) and (e) of the Act
does not depend upon the extent of a pipeline company's operations.
Id.
25 F. Supp. 460 affirmed.
Appeal from a decree of the District Court of three judges,
which dismissed a bill to set aside an order of the Interstate
Commerce Commission.
MR. JUSTICE REED delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Valvoline Oil Company appeals [
Footnote 1] from the final decree of a three-judge
district court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, under the
Urgent Deficiencies Act, [
Footnote
2] dismissing a petition to enjoin and annul an order of the
Interstate Commerce Commission. 25 F. Supp. 460. The order,
requiring appellant to file with the Commission certain maps,
charts, and schedules of its pipeline properties for use in valuing
the properties under Section 19a of the Interstate
Page 308 U. S. 143
Commerce Act was made after a determination by the Commission
that appellant was
"engaged in the transportation of oil by pipeline in interstate
commerce, and that it is a common carrier subject to the provisions
of the Interstate Commerce Act."
Through 1,426 miles of pipeline, running to 9,020 wells in
Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio, Valvoline gathers some
75,000 barrels of oil per month for its two refineries in
Pennsylvania which manufacture the products distributed by
Valvoline to the trade. All of this oil is purchased from producers
at the well, 50 percent originating in Pennsylvania, 38 percent in
West Virginia, and 12 percent in Ohio. At the time of the final
order of the Commission which it challenges here, Valvoline was
selling surplus oil, not needed in its own operations, to a
refinery in Pennsylvania and to another in West Virginia, but none
of this came from out of the state of the refinery. Because, thus,
it does not transport interstate other oil than that which it
purchases at the well for its own use, Valvoline claims that it is
not a common carrier of oil subject to the Interstate Commerce Act,
or, should it be held to come within the terms of the statute, that
the statute is unconstitutional as to it in that the provisions
violate due process by taking the carrier's property for public use
without compensation. Const. Amend. 5.
Appellant urges as reasons why it is not a common carrier within
the provisions of the Interstate Commerce Act that its pipelines
are used primarily to transport oil to its own refineries, that it
is not clothed with a public interest, that the oil flowing through
its lines is not in commerce until after preparation for market,
and that, since the purpose of Section 19a(a) and (e) of the
Interstate Commerce Act in requiring valuation data is to furnish a
basis for the establishment of traffic and rates, the report
required is the first step in general regulation to
Page 308 U. S. 144
which it is not subject. The pertinent provisions of the Act are
set out in the margin. [
Footnote
3]
There is no controversy over whether appellant is an interstate
pipeline company. Obviously it is. The contentions above are
advanced to show it is not subject to the Act. Section 1(3) defines
common carrier to include "all pipeline companies." If this
definition is not limited by the subsequent clause "engaged . . .
as common carriers for hire," extended consideration of these
characteristics of a private carrier is unnecessary, as the
language of the definition is decisive.
The practice of compelling producers to sell at the well before
admitting their oil to the lines was widely used as a means of
monopolizing the product before the Hepburn Amendment in 1906.
[
Footnote 4] Whether the oil so
owned
Page 308 U. S. 145
and transported was ultimately used by the carrier in its own
operations or sold to others was in this connection immaterial.
Certainly one would find a public interest in the sole means of
transporting this commodity from thousands of wells for thousands
of producers. This was covered by the
Pipe Line decision.
There, it was stated that commerce is not dependent of title, "and
the fact that the oils transported belonged to the owner of the
pipeline is not conclusive against the transportation being such
commerce." The applicable section of the Interstate Commerce Act at
the time of the Pipe Line Cases read:
"That the provisions of this Act shall apply to any . . . person
or persons engaged in the transportation of oil or other commodity,
except water and except natural or artificial gas, by means of
pipelines, . . . or partly by pipelines and partly by water, who
shall be considered and held to be common carriers within the
meaning and purpose of this Act."
This Court construed that section to cover those who were common
carriers in substance even if not in technical form, and read it
that those "engaged in the transportation of oil . . . by means of
pipelines" shall be treated as common carriers under the Act. The
last clause was held not "to cut down the generality" of the
Act.
In the present Act, there is a change of language, but we
perceive none in meaning. Speaking of the amendments of the
Transportation Act of 1920, which recast the Hepburn Amendment into
the present form, the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign
Commerce reported that the section here under consideration
"amends the first five paragraphs of section 1 of the Commerce
Act, making minor corrections and classifying language in several
respects, but making no important changes in policy. [
Footnote 5]"
As now written, the section brings railroads
Page 308 U. S. 146
under the Act by means of the last clause of subsection (3)
only. [
Footnote 6] This clause
is a conjunctive, not a modifier. It does not affect the generality
of the first clause as to pipeline companies.
The appellant relies upon the
Pipe Line Cases to show
that the present act does not cover a pipeline transporting oil for
its own refining purposes only. The discussion referred to is that
concerning the Uncle Sam Oil Company. But that company's pipeline
was used for the "sole purpose of conducting oil from its own wells
to its own refinery." This was held not to be transportation under
the Act. Here, however, it is the purchase from many sources and
subsequent carriage that determine the applicability of the statute
to Valvoline.
Appellant presses its argument beyond the question whether it
comes under the Act. If it does, it urges, the Act is in violation
of the due process clause in that, by the involuntary change of
status from private to common carrier, its property is taken. It
looks upon the various regulatory provisions of the Interstate
Commerce Act as inseparable from the valuation provisions of
Section 19a(a) and (e). The losses feared, from present or future
legislation other than the valuation provisions, may never occur.
The data required by the present order may never be used to fix
rates. No such information as to other pipelines has been so used.
Publicity alone may give effective remedy to abuses, if any there
be. [
Footnote 7] This
legislation was intended to free interstate commerce in oil from
practices believed to be detrimental, and, in that connection,
accessibility of valuation information to the Congress is
essential. Its separate significance being apparent, we confine
ourselves to Section 19a(a) and (e). The
Page 308 U. S. 147
constitutionality of such requirements was settled by the
Pipe Line Cases, and we see nothing that excepts appellant
from their effect. The smallness of the operation is immaterial.
[
Footnote 8]
Affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE BUTLER took no part in the consideration or decision
of this case.
[
Footnote 1]
Judicial Code § 238, 28 U.S.C. § 345.
[
Footnote 2]
38 Stat. 220, 28 U.S.C. §§ 47, 47a.
[
Footnote 3]
"Sec. 1. (1) The provisions of this chapter shall apply to
common carriers engaged in --"
"
* * * *"
"(b) The transportation of oil or other commodity, except water
and except natural or artificial gas, by pipeline, or partly by
pipeline and partly by railroad or by water; or"
"From one State . . . to any other State. . . ."
"(3) The term 'common carrier' as used in this chapter shall
include all pipeline companies; . . . express companies;
sleeping-car companies, and all persons, natural or artificial,
engaged in such transportation or transmission as aforesaid as
common carriers for hire."
"
* * * *"
"Sec.19a. (a) The Commission shall, as hereinafter provided,
investigate, ascertain, and report the value of all the property
owned or used by every common carrier subject to the provisions of
this chapter."
"
* * * *"
"(e) Every common carrier subject to the provisions of this
chapter shall furnish to the commission or its agents from time to
time and as the commission may require maps, profiles, contracts,
reports of engineers, and any other documents, records, and papers,
or copies of any or all of the same, in aid of such investigation
and determination of the value of the property of said common
carrier. . . ."
[
Footnote 4]
34 Stat. 584;
see 40 Cong.Rec. 6365-66;
Pipe Line
Cases, 234 U. S. 548,
234 U. S.
559.
[
Footnote 5]
Rep. No. 456, Nov. 10, 1919, to accompany H.R. 10453, 66th
Cong., 1st Sess.
[
Footnote 6]
Cf. Pennsylvania R. Co. v. Public Utilities Comm'n,
298 U. S. 170,
298 U. S.
174.
[
Footnote 7]
II Sharfman, The Interstate Commerce Commission 96.
[
Footnote 8]
Labor Board v. Fainblatt, 306 U.
S. 601,
306 U. S.
606.