text:
Can Republicans defeat Obama's health care bill by persuading the courts that mandatory health insurance is unconstitutional? On December 13, 2010, Henry Hudson, a federal judge in Virginia, declared unconstitutional the central provision of the health care reform law. Judge Hudson reasoned that the law's command that citizens purchase health care insurance extended beyond Congress's authority to legislate. It has long been established that Congress may regulate citizens' economic activities, such as entering into contracts, producing or purchasing goods and services, or shipping goods across state lines. But it is entirely unprecedented, Judge Hudson said, for Congress to regulate "inactivity"—a failure to buy insurance.
Obama dismissed the opinion as just "one ruling by one federal district court." But to others, it came as a shock. Dahlia Lithwick, Slate's legal affairs correspondent, said that before Judge Hudson's decision, most experts thought the legal challenges would fail in the Supreme Court by a large margin, 8–1 or 7–2, but that after the ruling, the betting is that the Court will split 5–4, with Justice Anthony Kennedy likely casting the decisive vote.1
It is easy to see why commentators might expect the case to be closely divided. Health care reform has been nothing if not intensely partisan. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was passed without a single Republican vote, and Republicans in the House have already voted to repeal it. The fight over its enactment helped promote the rise of the Tea Party and the Republican victories in the midterm elections. Most of the state attorneys-general who have challenged the law's constitutionality in court are Republicans. Several Democratic state attorneys-general have filed a brief supporting the law. So far, three judges have ruled on the merits of the challenges. Two, both appointed by Democratic presidents, upheld the act. Judge Hudson, the first to rule otherwise, is a Republican appointed by George W. Bush. Another Republican-appointed judge, Roger Vinson, has a similar case pending in Florida, and he is likely to side with Judge Hudson.1a
The roots of the ideological divide, moreover, run deep. The principal constitutional issue at stake—the extent of Congress's authority to pass laws governing Americans' lives—has separated conservatives and liberals since the beginning of the Republic. "States' rights" was the South's rallying cry in its effort to retain slavery before the Civil War, and to defend racial segregation from federal intervention thereafter. From the turn of the century through the early years of the New Deal, conservatives successfully invoked "states' rights" to interpret Congress's power over interstate commerce narrowly and thereby invalidate progressive federal laws designed to protect workers and consumers from big business. And the last two times that the Supreme Court struck down laws as reaching beyond Congress's Commerce Clause power, in 1995 and 2000, the Court split 5–4, with Chief Justice William Rehnquist writing the majority decision, over dissents by Justices Stephen Breyer, David Souter, John Paul Stevens, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.2
As Judge Hudson sees it, the health care reform law poses an unprecedented question: Can Congress, under its power to regulate "commerce among the states," regulate "inactivity" by compelling citizens who are not engaged in commerce to purchase insurance? If it is indeed a novel question, there may be plenty of room for political preconceptions to color legal analysis. And given the current makeup of the Supreme Court, that worries the law's supporters.
But the concerns are overstated. In fact, defenders of the law have both the better argument and the force of history on their side. Judge Hudson's decision reads as if it were written at the beginning of the twentieth rather than the twenty-first century. It rests on formalistic distinctions—between "activity" and "inactivity," and between "taxing" and "regulating"—that recall jurisprudence the Supreme Court has long since abandoned, and abandoned for good reason. To uphold Judge Hudson's decision would require the rewriting of several major and well-established tenets of constitutional law. Even this Supreme Court, as conservative a court as we have had in living memory, is unlikely to do that.
The objections to health care reform are ultimately founded not on a genuine concern about preserving state prerogative, but on a libertarian opposition to compelling individuals to act for the collective good, no matter who imposes the obligation. The Constitution recognizes no such right, however, so the opponents have opportunistically invoked "states' rights." But their arguments fail under either heading. With the help of the filibuster, the opponents of health care reform came close to defeating it politically. The legal case should not be a close call.
The provision that Judge Hudson struck down requires all Americans, unless exempted on religious or other grounds, to purchase health care insurance. (Most Americans are already covered through their employment or Medicare or Medicaid, so for them this law would have no impact.) Those who do not obtain insurance must pay a penalty in the form of a special tax.
The individual mandate is aimed at so-called "free riders"—people who fail to get insurance, and then cannot pay the cost of their own health care when they need it. Under our current system, in which hospitals must treat people regardless of ability to pay or insurance coverage, hospitals are able to recover only about 10 percent of the cost of treating uninsured individuals. That cost is ultimately borne by the rest of us. The federal government picks up much of the tab, and hospitals and insurers pass on the rest to their paying customers in higher fees. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that in 2008 the uninsured shifted $43 billion of health care costs to others.
Without the individual mandate, the health care law's more popular reforms—such as the bar on insurance companies denying coverage because of "preexisting conditions"—would actually make the insurance crisis worse. Knowing that insurers could not deny coverage or charge more for preexisting conditions, people could wait to buy insurance until they were sick. But then more and more of the people insured would be the sickest, defeating the very purpose of insurance—to spread the risk by creating a pool of funds that can be drawn on for payments. Premiums would skyrocket, meaning that even fewer people could afford insurance, and that would in turn induce still more people to opt out. As Wake Forest University Professor Mark Hall testified in Congress, "a health insurance market could never survive or even form if people could buy their insurance on the way to the hospital."
This is not just an academic prediction. When in 1994 Kentucky enacted similar reforms regarding preexisting conditions, but without an individual mandate, insurance costs rose so steeply that they became untenable, and insurers pulled out of the market altogether. Kentucky was forced to repeal the reform. Initiatives in New York and New Jersey faced similar problems. In Massachusetts, by contrast, where health insurance reform was coupled with an individual mandate, the system has worked; since 2006, insurance premiums there have fallen 40 percent, while the national average has increased 14 percent.
Judge Hudson acknowledged, as do the law's challengers, that Congress has power to regulate any economic activity that, in the aggregate, affects interstate commerce—no matter how minimal the activity's effects are standing alone. But the decision not to buy health insurance, Hudson reasoned, is not "activity" at all. It is "inactivity." Rather than setting rules for those who choose to engage in interstate commerce, the individual mandate compels a citizen who has chosen not to engage in commerce to do so by purchasing a product he does not want. If Congress can regulate such "inactivity," Hudson warned, there would be no limit to its powers, contravening the bedrock principle that the Constitution granted the federal government only limited powers.
Judge Hudson's reasoning is not without precedent—but the precedents that his rationale reflects have all been overturned. In the early twentieth century, the Supreme Court ruled that the Commerce Clause authorized Congress to regulate only "interstate" business, not "local" business; only "commerce," not production, manufacturing, farming, or mining. The Court also ruled that Congress could regulate only conduct that "directly" affects interstate commerce, not conduct that "indirectly" affects interstate commerce. Like Judge Hudson, the Supreme Court warned that unless it enforced these formal categorical constraints, there would be no limit to Congress's power. Thus, for example, in 1936, the Court struck down a federal law that established minimum wages and maximum hours for coal miners, reasoning that mining was local, not interstate; entailed production, not commerce; and had only "indirect" effects on interstate commerce.3 Using this approach, the Court invalidated many of the laws enacted during the early days of the New Deal.
Around 1937, however, the Court reversed course. It recognized what economists (and the Court's dissenters) had long argued, and what the Depression had driven home—that in a modern-day, interdependent national economy, local production necessarily affects interstate commerce, and there is no meaningful distinction between "direct" and "indirect" effects. In the local, agrarian economy of the Constitution's framers, it might have made sense to draw such distinctions, but in an industrialized (and now postindustrialized) America, the local and the national economies are inextricably interlinked.
As a result, Congress's power to regulate "interstate commerce" became, in effect, the power to regulate "commerce" generally. The Court rejected as empty formalisms the distinctions it had previously drawn, between local and interstate, between production and commerce, and between "direct" and "indirect" effects. Since 1937, the Supreme Court has found only two laws to be beyond Congress's Commerce Clause power. Both laws governed noneconomic activity—simple possession of a gun in a school zone and assaults against women, respectively—and were unconnected to any broader regulation of commerce.4 But the Court has repeatedly made clear that Congress can regulate any economic activity, and even noneconomic activity where doing so is "an essential part of a larger regulation of economic activity."
On this theory, the Supreme Court has upheld federal laws that restricted farmers' ability to grow wheat for their own consumption and that made it a crime to grow marijuana for personal medicinal use, even though in both instances the people concerned sought to stay out of the market altogether.5 The Court reasoned that even such personal consumption affects interstate commerce in the aggregate by altering supply and demand, and that therefore leaving it unregulated would undercut Congress's broader regulatory scheme.
Under these precedents, a citizen's decision to forgo insurance, like the farmer's decision to forgo the wheat market and grow wheat at home, easily falls within Congress's Commerce Clause power. When aggregated, those decisions will shift billions of dollars of costs each year from the uninsured to taxpayers and the insured. As a practical matter, there is no opting out of the health care market, since everyone eventually needs medical treatment, and very few can afford to pay their way when the time comes. (Those who refuse all medical treatment for religious scruples are an exception, but they are exempt from the mandate.) That one might affix the label "inactivity" to a decision to shift one's own costs to others does not negate the fact that such economic decisions have substantial effects on the insurance market, and that their regulation is "an essential part of a larger regulation of economic activity."
Another part of the Constitution, the "Necessary and Proper Clause," provides even more well-established support for Congress's action. That catch-all provision authorizes Congress to enact laws that, while not expressly authorized by the Constitution's specific enumerated powers, are "necessary and proper" to the exercise of those powers. In one of the Court's most important decisions, McCulloch v. Maryland, written by Chief Justice John Marshall nearly two hundred years ago, the Court unanimously ruled that this provision must be given a broad reading, permitting any laws that are "convenient" or "rationally related" to the furtherance of an express power.6 In that case, the Court upheld Congress's creation of a national bank, even though the authority to do so is nowhere expressly provided, because a national bank was rationally related to the exercise of Congress's other powers, including the power to coin money and tax and spend. By the same token, because the individual mandate is rationally related to Congress's conceded power to regulate health insurance, it is "necessary and proper."
The wide reach of the Necessary and Proper Clause was reaffirmed just last year when, in a 7–2 decision joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Kennedy and Samuel Alito, the Supreme Court upheld a federal law authorizing civil commitment of federal prisoners who are sexual predators, even though no provision expressly authorizes Congress to do so.7 The Court explained that as long as there is some initial link to an explicitly enumerated power in the Constitution, the Necessary and Proper Clause authorizes actions many steps removed from that power. Thus, the Court reasoned, Congress may pass criminal laws "rationally related" to any of its other enumerated powers. It may then build prisons to house those convicted, enact rules to govern prisoners, and provide civil commitment to protect the community from those leaving federal prison—even though the Constitution expressly authorizes none of these actions.
If the Necessary and Proper Clause supports such an extended string of implied powers, there can be little dispute that it authorizes the individual mandate. Congress undoubtedly has the authority to regulate health insurance under the Commerce Clause, so the individual mandate is "necessary and proper" as long as it is "rationally related" or "convenient" to that larger project. It clearly passes that test, as it is integral to avoiding a very large increase in health insurance premiums. Judge Hudson concluded, however, that because in his view the mandate was not permissible under the Commerce Clause, it could not be authorized by the Necessary and Proper Clause. That approach renders the latter clause meaningless, and directly contravenes McCulloch v. Maryland.
Finally, the individual mandate is also sustainable under Congress's independent power to tax. President Obama insisted on a Sunday talk show that the mandate was not a tax, but the Court has long ruled that the validity of a law turns not on what label is attached to it, but on what it does. The individual mandate collects revenue from individuals as part of their income tax. It is expected to generate $4 billion annually, which will help the federal government defray the health care costs the uninsured fail to pay.
Judge Hudson deemed the law to be a penalty, not a tax, citing a 1922 decision that invalidated a federal tax on child labor on this ground.8 But that case, which dates from the same pre–New Deal era when the Court was narrowly construing Congress's Commerce Clause powers, rested on another formalist distinction, since rejected, between laws that collect revenues and laws that regulate behavior. As with the pre–New Deal Commerce Clause distinctions, the Court has since abandoned this distinction, recognizing that taxes inevitably have regulatory effects by increasing the cost of the activity that is taxed. Thus, according to modern constitutional jurisprudence, a tax law is valid if it raises revenue and its regulations are reasonably related to the exercise of the taxing power.
Congress plainly can tax for the purpose of providing health insurance. It does so already, through Medicare and Medicaid. Had it simply expanded these programs to provide universal care, there would be no question that its actions would be permissible under the taxing power. Similarly, it indisputably could have granted tax credits to those who purchase health care, and withheld them from those who do not. Imposing the tax directly on free riders is no less an exercise of the taxing power.
Judge Hudson's concerns that upholding the law would lead to unlimited federal power are wildly exaggerated. A decision to sustain the individual mandate would not mean that Congress could require all Americans to exercise or eat only healthy food, as some have suggested. The individual mandate regulates an economic decision that is in turn an essential part of a comprehensive economic regulation of the interstate business of insurance. And health care is a unique commodity, in that virtually everyone will eventually need it; along with taxes and death, a trip to the doctor is one of life's inevitabilities. Thus, to say that Congress can require an individual to purchase insurance or pay a tax does not signal the end of all meaningful limits on federal power.
In short, Congress had ample authority to enact the individual mandate. Absent a return to a constitutional jurisprudence that has been rejected for more than seventy years, and, even more radically, an upending of Chief Justice Marshall's long-accepted view of the Necessary and Proper Clause, the individual mandate is plainly constitutional.
Near the end of his decision, Judge Hudson writes: "At its core, this dispute is not simply about regulating the business of insurance—or crafting a scheme of universal health insurance coverage—it's about an individual's right to choose to participate." Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who brought the suit, echoed that point the day the decision came down, insisting that "this lawsuit is not about health care. It's about liberty." But that is exactly what the case is not about. A decision that Congress lacks the power to enact the individual mandate says nothing about individual rights or liberty. It speaks only to whether the power to require citizens to participate in health insurance, a power that states indisputably hold, also extends to the federal government. The framers sought to give Congress the power to address problems of national or "interstate" scope, problems that could not adequately be left to the states. The national health insurance crisis is precisely such a problem. The legal question in the case is about which governmental entities have the power to regulate; not whether individuals have a liberty or right to refuse to purchase health care insurance altogether.
But Judge Hudson and Ken Cuccinelli's misstatements are nonetheless telling. Opposition to health care reform is ultimately not rooted in a conception of state versus federal power. It's founded instead on an individualistic, libertarian objection to a governmental program that imposes a collective solution to a social problem. While Judge Hudson's reliance on a distinction between activity and inactivity makes little sense from the standpoint of federal versus state power, it intuitively appeals to the libertarian's desire to be left alone. But nothing in the Constitution even remotely guarantees a right to be a free rider and to shift the costs of one's health care to others. So rather than directly claim such a right, the law's opponents resort to states' rights.
In this respect, Judge Hudson and the Virginia attorney-general are situated squarely within a tradition—but it's an ugly tradition. Proponents of slavery and segregation, and opponents of progressive labor and consumer laws, similarly invoked states' rights not because they cared about the rights of states, but as an instrumental legal cover for what they really sought to defend—the rights to own slaves, to subordinate African-Americans, and to exploit workers and consumers.
Here, too, opponents of health care reform are not really seeking to vindicate the power of states to regulate health care. Rather, they are counting on the fact that if they succeed with this legal gambit, the powerful interests arrayed against health care reform—the insurance industry, doctors, and drug companies—will easily overwhelm any efforts at meaningful reform in most states. Unless the Supreme Court is willing to rewrite hundreds of years of jurisprudence, however, they will not succeed.
—January 27, 2011
This Issue
February 24, 2011
It is not certain that Judge Hudson's decision will reach the Supreme Court. He found that Virginia had standing to sue because its legislature had enacted a law giving citizens the right not to buy health insurance, as part of a national campaign by health care reform opponents to create obstacles in the states. It is far from clear that a state can manufacture a dispute by enacting such a law, so it is possible that the case could be thrown out on appeal for failing to present a concrete controversy. However, at some point the health care law will plainly be subject to a constitutional challenge, at a minimum by any individual who objects to being required to purchase health insurance or pay the tax. So whether in this case or some other, the courts will eventually have to address the law's constitutionality. ↩
United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598 (2000); United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995). ↩
Carter v. Carter Coal Co., 298 U.S. 238 (1936). ↩
See cases cited in note 2. ↩
Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1 (2005); Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942). ↩
McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. (Wheat.) 316 (1819). ↩
United States v. Comstock, 130 S. Ct. 1949 (2010). ↩
Child Labor Tax Case, 259 U.S. 20 (1922). ↩


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FEDERAL POWER COMMISSION v. EAST OHIO GAS CO. et al.
70 S.Ct. 266
94 L.Ed. 268
EAST OHIO GAS CO. et al.
No. 71.
Argued Nov. 10, 1949.
Decided Jan. 9, 1950.
Rehearing Denied Feb. 20, 1950.
See 339 U.S. 905, 70 S.Ct. 515.
Mr. Bradford Ross, Washington, D.C., for petitioner.
Mr. William B. Cockley, Cleveland, Ohio, for respondent, East Ohio Gas Co.
Mr. Harry M. Miller, Columbus, Ohio, for respondents, State of Ohio and Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.
Mr. Walter R. McDonald, Washington, D.C., for Indiana Public Service Commission et al., as amici curiae, by Special leave of Court.
[Argument of Counsel from page 465 intentionally omitted]
Mr. Justice BLACK delivered the opinion of the Court.
Section 1(b) of the Natural Gas Act1 provides that the Act 'shall apply to the transportation of natural gas in interstate commerce, to the sale in interstate commerce of natural gas for resale for ultimate public consumption * * * and to natural-gas companies engaged in such transportation or sale, but shall not apply to any other transportation or sale of natural gas or to the local distribution of natural gas or to the facilities used for such distribution * * *.' Section 2(6) defines 'natural-gas company' as 'a person engaged in the transportation of natural gas in interstate commerce * * *.' The Federal Power Commission, after hearings, found as facts that respondent East Ohio Gas Company was a natural-gas company and subject to the Commission's jurisdiction.2 On these and subsidiary findings the Company was ordered to keep accounts and submit reports as required by the Act.3 The Commission rejected the Company's contentions4 that its operations were not covered by the Act and that the expense of supplying the required information was so great as to transgress statutory and constitutional limits.5 The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, without reaching other contentions, reversed the Commission's orders on the ground that the Company was not 'engaged in the transportation of natural gas in interstate commerce within the meaning of the Act'.6 Importance of the questions to administration of the Act prompted us to grant certiorari. 337 U.S. 937, 69 S.Ct. 1516, 93 L.Ed. 1742.
East Ohio owns and operates a natural-gas business solely in Ohio, selling gas to more than half a million Ohio consumers through local distribution systems. Most of this natural gas is transported into Ohio from Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, and West Virginia through pipe lines of Panhandle Eastern Pipe Line Company and of Hope Natural Gas Company, an affiliate of East Ohio. Inside the Ohio boundary these interstate lines connect with East Ohio's large high-pressure lines in which the imported gas, propelled mainly by its own pressure, flows continuously more than 100 miles to East Ohio's local distribution systems. The combined length of these high-pressure trunk lines is at least 650 miles.
That this continuous flow of gas from other states to and through East Ohio's high-pressure lines constitutes interstate transportation has been established by numerous previous decisions of this Court. The gas does not cease its interstate journey the instant it crosses the Ohio boundary or enters East Ohio's pipes, even though that Company operates completely within the state where the gas is finally consumed. Respondents do not and cannot claim that their gas is not in interstate commerce.7 As we held in Interstate Natural Gas Co. v. Federal Power Comm., 331 U.S. 682, 688, 67 S.Ct. 1482, 1486, 91 L.Ed. 1742, the meaning of 'interstate commerce' in this Act is no more restricted than that which theretofore had been given to it in the opinions of this Court.
Respondents contend, however, that the word 'transportation' in § 1(b) must be construed as applying only to companies engaged in the business of transporting gas in interstate commerce for hire or for sales to be followed by resales, whereas East Ohio does neither. The short answer is that the Act's language did not express any such limitation. Despite the unqualified language of § 1(b) making the Act apply to 'transportation of natural gas in interstate commerce,' respondents ask us to qualify that language by applying it only to businesses which both transport and sell natural gas for resale. They rely on a sentence in the declaration of policy, § 1(a), referring to 'the business of transporting and selling natural gas'. But their contention that the word 'and' in the policy provision creates an unseverable bond is completely refuted by the clearly disjunctive phrasing of § 1(b) itself. As we pointed out in Panhandle Eastern Pipe Line Co. v. Public Service Comm., 332 U.S. 507, 516, 68 S.Ct. 190, 195, 92 L.Ed. 128, § 1(b) made the Natural Gas Act applicable to three separate things: '(1) the transportation of natural gas in interstate commerce; (2) its sale in interstate commerce for resale; and (3) natural gas companies engaged in such transportation or sale.' And throughout the Act 'transportation' and 'sale' are viewed as separate subjects of regulation. They have independent and equally important places in the Act. Thus, to adopt respondents' construction would unduly restrict the Commission's power to carry out one of the major policies of the Act. Moreover, the initial interest of Congress in regulation of transportation facilities was reemphasized in 1942 by passage of an amendment to § 7(c) of the Act broadening the Commission's powers over the construction or extension of pipe lines. 56 Stat. 83. This amendment followed a report of the Commission to Congress pointing out that without amendment the Act vested the Commission with inadequate power to make 'any serious effort to control the unplanned construction of natural-gas pipe lines with a view to conserving one of the country's valuable but exhaustible energy resources.'8 We hold that the word 'transportation' like the phrase 'interstate commerce' aptly describes the movements of gas in East Ohio's High-pressure pipe lines.9
Respondents also contend that East Ohio is exempt from the Act because all its facilities come within the proviso in § 1(b) making the Act inapplicable 'to the local distribution of natural gas or to the facilities used for such distribution'. But what Congress must have meant by facilities' for 'local distribution' was equipment for distributing gas among consumers within a particular local community, not the high-pressure pipe lines transporting the gas to the local mains. For in decisions prior to enactment of the statute this Court had sharply distinguished between the two: it had made it clear that the national commerce power alone covered the high-pressure trunk lines to the point where pressure was reduced and the gas entered local mains, while the state alone could regulate the gas after it entered those mains.10 The legislative history shows that the attention of Congress was directly focused on the cases drawing this distinction. It was because these cases had barred federal regulation of community supply systems that the Committee Report could correctly describe the 'local distribution' proviso as surplusage which was 'not actually necessary.'11 We are wholly unpersuaded that Congress intended to treat trunk lines like East Ohio's as though they were mere integrated facilities of the numerous community supply systems which they service. Indeed, as respondents admitted upon oral argument here, the logical consequence of such a principle would be that even a pipe line stretching from Texas to Cleveland would be completely exempt from the federal Commission's jurisdiction if it were owned by East Ohio. To draw such a strained inference from the congressional exemption of local distribution systems would ignore the importance of nationally controlling interstate pipe lines in order to preserve 'equality of opportunity and treatment among the various communities and states concerned.' State of Missouri v. Kansas Natural Gas Co., 265 U.S. 298, 310, 44 S.Ct. 544, 546, 68 L.Ed. 1027.
What we have said indicates that East Ohio comes squarely within the coverage of the Act as set out in §§ 1(b) and 2(6). Nevertheless respondents contend that this express coverage is restricted by the broad purpose of the Act to provide federal regulation only for those companies which states could not regulate. Urging that all of East Ohio's business is fully subject to regulation by the state, they rely on statements by this Court that Congress intended not to cut down state regulatory power, but rather to supplement it by closing 'the gap created by the prior decisions.' Panhandle Eastern Pipe Line Co. v. Public Service Comm., 332 U.S. 507, 517—519, 68 S.Ct. 190, 195—196, 92 L.Ed. 128; see also Public Utilities Comm. of Ohio v. United Fuel Gas Co., 317 U.S. 456, 467, 63 S.Ct. 369, 375, 87 L.Ed. 396. We adhere to those statements. But prior constitutional decisions, not what we have since decided or would decide today, form the measure of the gap which Congress intended to close by this Act. Illinois Natural Gas Co. v. Central Illinois Public Service Co., 314 U.S. 498, 508, 62 S.Ct. 384, 388, 86 L.Ed. 371; and see Parker v. Motor Boat Sales, 314 U.S. 244, 250, 62 S.Ct. 221, 225, 86 L.Ed. 184.
In a series of cases repeatedly called to the attention of the House Committee,12 this Court had declared that states could regulate interstate gas only after it was reduced in pressure and entered a local distribution system. Public Utilities Comm. v. Landon, 249 U.S. 236, 243, 39 S.Ct. 268, 63 L.Ed. 577; State of Missouri v. Kansas Natural Gas Co., 265 U.S. 298, 310, 44 S.Ct. 544, 546, 68 L.Ed. 1027; Poublic Utilities Comm. v. Attleboro Steam & Electric Co., 273 U.S. 83, 89, 47 S.Ct. 294, 496, 71 L.Ed. 549; and see East Ohio Gas Co. v. Tax Comm., 283 U.S. 465, 470 472, 51 S.Ct. 499, 500—501, 75 L.Ed. 1171.13 Under these decisions state regulatory power could not reach high-pressure trunk lines and sales for resale. This was the 'gap' which Congress intended to close. It therefore acted under the federal commerce power to regulate what these decisions had indicated that the states could not. We have already held that in so doing Congress subjected to federal regulation a company transporting interstate gas, and selling it for resale, wholly within one state. Illinois Natural Gas Co. v. Central Illinois Public Service Co., 314 U.S. 498, 62 S.Ct. 384, 86 L.Ed. 371.14 The only respect in which East Ohio differs from that company is that it sells gas direct to consumers rather than for resale. This difference is immaterial. For as we have already pointed out, East Ohio comes directly within the express provision granting power to the Commission to regulate 'transportation of natural gas in interstate commerce,' just as the Illinois company came directly within the express provision covering sale for resale. And in the light of the Illinois Gas decision we cannot see how the 'local distribution' proviso can be construed as encompassing all of East Ohio's operations throughout the state. That proviso cannot mean one thing for "transportation' and another where 'sale for resale' is involved.
Here as elsewhere, once a company is properly found to be a 'natural gas company,' no state can interfere with federal regulation. That a state commission might also have some regulatory power would not preclude exercise of the Commission's function. Connecticut Light & Power Co. v. Federal Power Comm., 324 U.S. 515, 533, 65 S.Ct. 749, 757, 89 L.Ed. 1150; Public Utilities Comm. v. Attleboro Steam & Electric Co., 273 U.S. 83, 89—90, 47 S.Ct. 294, 296, 71 L.Ed. 549. Nor does the Act purport to abolish all overlapping. Section 5(b), for example, provides that the Commission may 'investigate and determine the cost of the production or transportation of natural gas by a natural-gas company in cases where the Commission has no authority to establish a rate governing the transportation or sale of such natural gas.' 52 Stat. 824. Yet clearly the state agency establishing such a rate would have equivalent authority.
We find no language in the Act indicating that Congress meant to create an exception for every company transporting interstate gas in only one state. Regardless of whether it might have been wiser and more farseeing statesmanship for Congress to have made such an exception, we should not do so through the interpretative process. There is nothing in the legislative history which authorizes us to interpret away the plain congressional mandate.
A contention not passed on by the Court of Appeals but urged here by respondents, is that compliance with the Commission's accounting and report orders would impose so great a burden on East Ohio 'as to make such orders transgress statutory and constitutional limits.' Our attention is not specifically referred to anything in the record showing that the Commission has required East Ohio to adopt any particular accounting method or make any particular report not reasonably related to the Commission's granted powers in this respect.15 Nor did the Commission fail to make proper findings to support its order. All of the Commission requirements affirmatively appear to call for the precise kind of accounting system, information, and reports that Congress deemed relevant and necessary for the Commission to have in performing its regulatory duties. The principles of law governing such requirements were adequately set out by Mr. Justice Cardozo speaking for the Court in American Telephone & Telegraph Co. v. United States, 299 U.S. 232, 57 S.Ct. 170, 81 L.Ed. 142. See also Northwestern Electric Co. v. Federal Power Comm., 321 U.S. 119, 64 S.Ct. 451, 88 L.Ed. 596. Measured by these criteria for judicial review of such orders, we find no reason to reject the Commission's findings that the orders here issued were necessary and proper as applied to East Ohio. And as to the cost of compliance, it is sufficient to say as the Court said in the American Telephone & Telegraph case, supra, 299 U.S. at page 247, 57 S.Ct. at page 177, 81 L.Ed. 142: 'The evidence does not show that the expense * * * will lay so heavy a burden upon the companies as to overpass the bounds of reason.'16
The contention that the Commission's order violates the reserved rights of the states under the Tenth Amendment is foreclosed by the Court's holding in Northwestern Electric Co. v. Federal Power Comm., supra, 321 U.S. at page 125, 64 S.Ct. at page 454, 88 L.Ed. 596. Section 8(a) of the National Gas Act itself provides that 'nothing in this act shall relieve any such natural-gas company from keeping any accounts, memoranda, or records which such natural-gas company may be required to keep by or under authority of the laws of any State.'
The Commission's order is valid and should be enforced.
Mr. Justice DOUGLAS and Mr. Justice BURTON took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Mr. Justice JACKSON, whom Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER joins, dissenting.
If this were a case of applying an explicit policy of Congress to one recalcitrant gas company, there would of course be no dissent. But if it were such, we would not be likely to find the State of Ohio and her Utility Commission, the National Association of Railroad and Utility Commissioners, and public authorities of several states, including some with notable records for protecting the public interest, here helping the utility. This alliance of state authorities against the Federal Power Commission suggests that there must be more to this case than meets the eye.
The key to an understanding of the Federal Natural Gas Act is its purpose to supplement but not to supplant state regulation. Before passage of the Act, each state was able to regulate the ultimate price of natural gas distributed to its consumers. Pennsylvania Gas Co. v. Public Service Comm., 252 U.S. 23, 40 S.Ct. 279, 64 L.Ed. 434. This Court has never denied any state that power. But in doing so they were obliged to allow as operating costs what the distributing company paid for the gas when brought into its system from out of the state. This purchase price the state could not regulate, often not even investigate, and the purchases frequently were from affiliates, a fact which might cool the local company's normal zeal to drive a good bargain for itself and its consumers. Hence, the states appealed to Congress to set up machinery to fix the import price of out-of-state gas. This was all that the states asked the Federal Government to do, and it is everything that the Federal Power Commission revealed any purpose to do while the legislation was pending. Its Solicitor summarized the purposes before a subcommittee of the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, as follows: 'The whole purpose of this bill is to bring under Federal regulation the pipe lines and to leave to the State commissions control of distributing companies and over their rates, whether that gas moves in interstate commerce or not.' Hearings Before a Sub-committee of the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce on H.R. 11662, 74th Cong., 2d Sess. 24. That is what the state authorities active in promoting the legislation seem to have believed had been accomplished.
East Ohio is an all-Ohio company, deriving income solely from distributing gas directly to Ohio consumers. It sells no gas for resale. All of its assets are located and all of its business is transacted in Ohio. Since 1911, the Ohio State Commission has exercised regulatory powers over it which have included rate-making, authorizing acquisition of sale of property, approval of capitalization and security issues, complete control of accounting practices and requiring detailed periodic reports. Except for inability to fix the price at which gas should be delivered to the company at the state line, Ohio is able to supervise and regulate this utility completely and continuously.
The Federal Power Commission, as authorized by the Act, fixed the state-line price that East Ohio must pay for its out-of-state supplies. But now it seeks to go beyond this and superimpose some features of its regulation which conflict with the regulation of the identical subject matter by the State of Ohio. How much farther than the order here under review the Commission will go in supplanting or duplicating state regulation is not clear from its argument, and how far it can go is rendered unclear by the Court's opinion which expressly approves some overlapping but leaves its bounds in carefully stated doubt. The anxiety which this program stirs among other states is explained by its magnitude. The Power Commission in its petition here notes forty-three pending cases in which it takes this same position vis-a-vis state regulation.
It appears that the present particular issue arises because the Commission has theories of accounting different from those the state has seen fit to accept. The Federal Commission has ordered East Ohio to change its entire accounting system for all of its properties at a very heavy cost. This requires it either to conduct its accounting contrary to laws of Ohio and the orders of the State Commission or perhaps to keep two sets of books. This is a real conflict in which experience shows state control will wither away and leave the federal rule in possession of the field.
This Court can sustain such overlapping and overriding of the state's authority only by repudiating its own recent statements. After reviewing the history of the Natural Gas Act, we have said that 'Congress meant to create a comprehensive scheme of regulation which would be complementary in its operation to that of the states, without any confusion of functions.' Public Utilities Comm. v. United Fuel Gas Co., 317 U.S. 456, 467, 63 S.Ct. 369, 375, 87 L.Ed. 396. In a later case, quoting H.R.Rep.No. 709, 75th Cong., 1st Sess., we said that '(T)he bill was designed to take 'no authority from State commissions' and was 'so drawn as to complement and in no manner usurp State regulatory authority." Federal Power Comm. v. Hope Natural Gas Co., 320 U.S. 591, 610, 64 S.Ct. 281, 291, 88 L.Ed. 333. Quoting the same House Report, we thereafter pointed out that '(T)he 'basic purpose' of Congress in passing the Natural Gas Act was 'to occupy this field in which the Supreme Court has held that the States may not act." Interstate Natural Gas Co. v. Federal Power Comm., 331 U.S. 682, 690, 67 S.Ct. 1482, 1487, 91 L.Ed. 1742. And only last year we observed that, 'The Natural Gas Act was designed to supplement state power and to produce a harmonious and comprehensive regulation of the industry. Neither state nor federal regulatory body was to encroach upon the jurisdiction of the other.' Federal Power Comm. v. Panhandle Eastern Pipe Line Co., 337 U.S. 498, 513, 69 S.Ct. 1251, 1260.
What defines the point beyond which the provisions of the Act shall not apply? The Court suggests that there is an inherent limitation on the affirmative grant of power which would render surplusage the clause in § 1(b) denying application of the Act to 'the local distribution of natural gas or to the facilities used for such distribution'. Or it may be this exclusionary clause itself. At any rate, the Court finds the dividing line of jurisdiction to be drawn by physical characteristics of the transmission lines. It seizes upon the point where the high pressure at which gas is transmitted any sub-stantial distance is reduced to the low pressure at which it must be served to customers' burners through the community supply lines as the outer limit of the 'local' area reserved to the states.
Recognizing the purpose of the Federal Natural Gas Act of June 21, 1938, to regulate only that which was unregulated and unregulatable by the states, the Court assumes that decisions prior to its passage, 'not what we have since decided or would decide today,' fix the states' power for the purposes of measuring that of the Commission. The Court has heretofore followed the principle that Congress does not intend to freeze the impact of its legislation within current judicial decisions in the absence of evidence which makes such intention unmistakable. United States v. South-Eastern Underwriters Ass'n, 322 U.S. 533, 64 S.Ct. 1162, 88 L.Ed. 1440. But today it makes no effort to look for evidence of such an intention and had it searched it would not have found it. Cf. Helvering v. Griffiths, 318 U.S. 371, 63 S.Ct. 636, 87 L.Ed. 843; Parker v. Motor Boat Sales, 314 U.S. 244, 62 S.Ct. 221, 86 L.Ed. 184.
Today's anomalous result whereby the Commission is given regulatory power over the intrastate distribution facilities of a gas company over whose sales it admittedly has no jurisdiction is based upon the premise that paramount in Congress' mind in dealing with cases prior to passage of the Act, was, not the holdings of applicable cases relating to regulation, but the peculiarly mechanistic formula employed principally in 1931 in East Ohio Gas Co. v. Tax Comm., 283 U.S. 465, 51 S.Ct. 499, 75 L.Ed. 1171,1 as a means of holding that the State of Ohio could levy an excise tax based on the entire gross receipts from sales to local consumers by an interstate gas company.
I find no convincing indication, either in the language of the Act or in its legislative history, that Congress intended that we should be forever bound, in construing this legislation, either by the then current decisions as to limitations of the Commerce Clause on state power, cf. United States v. South-Eastern Underwriters Ass'n, supra, or by the then current criteria of what separated local from nonlocal facilities. The crucial question is not whether this Court in 1931 would have held a given factual situation without the area of local distribution and beyond the reach of state regulation, but whether this Court today can say that the federal power can be exerted because the state power cannot be exerted. So long as we pay even lip service to Congress' intention to leave to the states that which they can regulate, we cannot satisfactorily beg this question.
But even if the Court is to shift to the doctrine that Congress casts its Acts forever in the mold made by prior decisions of this Court, the pressure-reduction station now relied upon to limit 'local' had lost its standing even in tax cases and never was accepted in regulation cases. If Congress was interested in tax case criteria when it passed the Natural Gas Act, it must have known of this Court's disdainful disregard of pressure changes in favor of emphasis on the difference between wholesale and retail distribution less than half a year after the East Ohio tax decision. State Tax Comm. v. Interstate Natural Gas Co., 284 U.S. 41, 52 S.Ct. 62, 76 L.Ed. 156.2
And yet, although the Committee Reports and the records of congressional debates on the Natural Gas Act may be scanned in vain for any mention of this pressure-reduction point, we are now asked to believe that Congress fixed it as the point where state control should end and federal control should begin. with this approach, today's decision confines the states' regulatory power to the service area, bounded by the low-pressure transmission system, which means practically within the city gates. By its emphasis on this pressure change the Court finds a plain congressional grant of Commission jurisdiction over high-pressure pipe lines such as those of East Ohio. However, this pressure factor is one which we found immaterial in Interstate Natural Gas Co. v. Federal Power Comm., supra, 331 U.S. at page 689, 67 S.Ct. at page 1486, 91 L.Ed. 1742, where, with rare unanimity, we put our emphasis upon the fact of sale for resale in interstate commerce. But today it is the difference between retail and wholesale operations which is termed immaterial, so long as the factor of high-pressure pipe lines is present.
This shift in emphasis rests upon inferences drawn from the legislative history of the Natural Gas Act which are wholly inconsistent with those drawn in our prior decisions examining the subject. Heretofore we have been careful consistently to observe that Congress did not attempt to occupy the entire field within the limits of its constitutional power, and until today we have insisted that in extending federal regulation Congress 'was meticulous to take in only territory which this Court had held the states could not reach.' Panhandle Eastern Pipe Line Co. v. Comm., 332 U.S. 507, 519, 68 S.Ct. 190, 196, 92 L.Ed. 128. We said only two years ago in that case that '(B)y 1938 the Court had delineated broadly between the area of permissible state control and that in which the states could not intrude. The former included interstate direct sales to local consumers, as exemplified in Pennsylvania Gas Co. v. Public Service Comm., 252 U.S. 23, 40 S.Ct. 279, 64 L.Ed. 434; the latter, service interstate to local distributing companies for resale, as held in State of Missouri v. Kansas Natural Gas Co., 265 U.S. 298, 44 S.Ct. 544, 68 L.Ed. 1027, reinforced by Public Utilities Comm. v. Attleboro Steam & Electric Co., 273 U.S. 83, 47 S.Ct. 294, 71 L.Ed. 549.' And we went on to say that the purpose of the legislation was to make state regulation effective 'by adding the weight of federal regulation to supplement and reinforce it in the gap created by the prior decisions.' Id., 332 U.S. at pages 514, 517, 68 S.Ct. at page 195. And see Interstate Natural Gas Co. v. Federal Power Comm., 331 U.S. 682, 689, 67 S.Ct. 1482, 1486. 91 L.Ed. 1742; also, Federal Power Comm. v. Hope Natural Gas Co., 320 U.S. 591, 609, 64 S.Ct. 281, 291, 88 L.Ed. 333, quoting from Illinois Natural Gas Co. v. Central Illinois Public Service Co., 314 U.S. 498, 506, 62 S.Ct. 384, 387, 86 L.Ed. 371. We could hardly have said more clearly that the 'gap' was in the wholesale realm of the natural-gas industry in interstate commerce.
The Court's opinion professes to adhere to these statements relating to the gap Congress intended to close. But it first widens the gap, squarely upon the premise that, under decisions of this Court called to Congress' attention prior to passage of the Act, the state regulatory power could not reach transmission lines for interstate gas outside the point of reduction in pressure. Actually, no decision could have been called to the attention of Congress, and none is or can be cited today, in which this Court held that any of the intrastate transmission lines of any retail gas, electric or similar company, within or without the pressure-reduction point, were beyond the state regulatory authority. Nor was this question even at issue in any case cited by the Court in support of its premise. That is not to say that the question was not considered, however. Quite to the contrary, less than two months before passage of the Natural Gas Act, this Court, through the pen of Mr. Chief Justice Hughes, in a case not cited by the Court, declared that such transmission lines were properly within the sphere of state ratemaking powers. Lone Star Gas Co. v. Texas, 304 U.S. 224, 551, 58 S.Ct. 883, 82 L.Ed. 1304.3 And so if Congress were consulting the decisions of this Court to define the gap in state power, which it must fill with the Commission's function, it found the latest, and all but unanimous one, to declare that no gap such as the Court perceives today was then existent.
Although the scope of the Natural Gas Act was not limited to sales of natural gas in interstate commerce for resale, it must be recognized that, if any one thing is clear from the legislative history of this Act, it is that Congress' paramount concern was to establish regulation of such prices.4 And it must likewise be recognized that, whatever of our old doctrines may have been frozen into the Act, could not include the point of pressure reduction and entrance into municipal lines as the measure of state regulatory authority, for no such doctrine can be found in our cases.
Thus it is apparent that in selecting the point to mark either the inherent limitation in the Act's affirmative grant of power to the Commission, or the corollary limit imposed by the clause excluding facilities used in local distribution, the Court has resorted to criteria neither supportable by this Court's decisions prior to the Act nor even claimed to be consistent with its most recent doctrines.
But if the pressure-reduction point cannot be resurrected from the East Ohio tax case to bound the facilities used in the local distribution of natural gas in interstate commerce, what criteria can we employ? It is not as though a simple, unsophisticated answer were not available. It seems to me that the obvious answer is that intrastate transmission lines of a retail gas company, devoted exclusively to serving communities within the state are facilities used in the local distribution of natural gas and are accordingly excepted from application of the Act. For it must not be forgotten that if justification for today's decision cannot be found in § 1(b) of the Act, it cannot be established by resort to the language of those sections defining the Commission's powers. For § 1(b) is jurisdictional. It sets forth the areas to which the provisions of the Act shall and shall not apply. Its 'but' clause was Congress' assurance to the state bodies sponsoring the legislation that federal control would not extend to the area within their authority. Cf. Connecticut Light & Power Co. v. Federal Power Comm., 324 U.S. 515, 527, 65 S.Ct. 749, 755, 89 L.Ed. 1150.
This simple solution squares not only with modern standards, but also with the approach, if it is to be adopted, that Congress in passing this Act froze into law current judicial decisions. It keeps faith with the states. It is decidedly consistent with our recent declaration under the almost identical words of a similar Act that limitation of local facilities was not to be found in the East Ohio tax formula, and that even the transmission lines of a statewide system supplying electric power to consumers in over a hundred communities are 'facilities used in local distribution.' Connecticut Light & Power Co. v. Federal Power Comm., supra.
Of course, this solution does not render meaningless the 'transportation of natural gas in interstate commerce' to which the provisions of the Act apply. For instance it would logically enough give to the Federal Power Commission, under the above 'transportation clause,' exclusive jurisdiction over the main transmission lines of a retail gas company which ran through Ohio and on into New York; but it would leave to Ohio exclusive jurisdiction over lateral lines branching out from the main trunk in Ohio and, whether one or one hundred miles long, devoted exclusively to delivering gas to the burner tips in Ohio communities. Similarly, under the hypothesis constructed in the Court's opinion, wherein East Ohio is pictured as having its own transmission lines extending all the way from Texas, it would give exclusively to the Power Commission jurisdiction over those lines beyond the Ohio border as well as over those within or without the state not devoted exclusively to serving Ohio consumers at retail. Again, it would, quite obviously within the words of the Act, give exclusively to the Power Commission jurisdiction over companies which might act in the nature of common carriers transporting gas in interstate commerce for hire. In short it would give to the transportation clause a meaning which, contrary to today's opinion, does not render surplusage the 'sale in interstate commerce of natural gas for resale' to which the provisions also apply.5
What the Power Commission asks the Court to do today is not to fill a gap in the state's power to regulate, for there is none, but to create a gap in order to make room for federal power.
I can well understand the zeal of the Federal Power Commission to expand its control over the natural gas industry. It sprawls over many states and each system must be physically integrated from the depths of the wells to the consumer's burner tips. Its regulation cannot be uniform if the Federal Commission controls only a middle segment, with production on one end and distribution on the other committed to the control of different states. But that was as far as Congress was willing to supersede state authority. It left the peculiar problems affecting production to the producing states, it left the ultimate protection of consumers to the consuming states, and it left the Federal Power Commission in the middle to fix the rates for gas moving between the two. This obviously subdivides regulation of what has to operate as a unitary enterprise, but that is often the consequence of our federal system. Whatever we may think would be wise policy in this field, the Act which Congress passed places limitations upon the Power Commission, which may chafe but which neither we nor the Commission are free to override. If the Commission had foreshadowed its present course, I do not suppose the Act would have passed, for it certainly would have evoked resistance of the state regulatory agencies instead of their support.
Congress may well have believed that diversity of experimentation in the field of regulation has values which centralization and uniformity destroy. As Mr. Justice Brandeis said, 'It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.' New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 285 U.S. 262, 311, 52 S.Ct. 371, 386, 76 L.Ed. 747. Long before the Federal Government could be stirred to regulate utilities, courageous states took the initiative and almost the whole body of utility practice has resulted from their experiences.
We must not forget that regulatory measures are temporary expedients, not eternal verities—if indeed they are verities at all. Certainly one of the matters on which the states might well be indulged—the right to an opinion of their own—is as to the accounting methods of a utility whose whole property and business being accounted for is within the state. Out of their diversity of practice and experience emerge pragmatic tests. What the Federal Power Commission seeks to require of this Ohio gas company, for example, is to revert by accounting methods to emphasis on original cost, a basis which William Jennings Bryan for an earlier generation of progressives eloquently urged this Court to reject in the field of railroad rate-making. Smyth v. Ames, 169 U.S. 466, 18 S.Ct. 418, 42 L.Ed. 819. See Mr. Bryan's argument, 169 U.S. at page 489. That is a basis of which, last month, we said in another connection, 'Original cost is well termed the 'false standard of the past' where, as here, present market value in no way reflects that cost.' United States v. Toronto, Hamilton & Buffalo Navigation Co., 338 U.S. 396, 403, 70 S.Ct. 217, 221. It must be remembered that closer than any federal agency to those they regulate and to their customers are the state authorities, whose mechanisms are less cumbersome and whose principles can much more quickly be adjusted to the changing times.
We should not utilize the centralizing powers of the federal judiciary to destroy diversities between states which Congress has been scrupulous to protect. If now and then some state does not regulate its utilities according to the federal standard, it may be a small price to pay for preserving the state initiative which gave us utilities regulation far in advance of federal initiative.
I think that observance of good faith with the states requires that we interpret this Act as it was represented at the time they urged its enactment, as its terms read, and as we have, until today, declared it, viz. to supplement but not to supplant state regulation. What amounts to an entrapment of the state agencies that supported this Act under the representation that it would not deprive them of powers but would only make their powers effective will probably not make it easier to get needed regulatory legislation in the future.
52 Stat. 821, as amended by 56 Stat. 83, 15 U.S.C. § 717 et seq., 15 U.S.C.A. § 717 et seq.
The Commission instituted the proceedings on its own motion and on complaint of the City of Cleveland, Ohio. Later other Ohio cities filed similar complaints. See 1 F.P.C. 586; 4 F.P.C. 15; 4 F.P.C. 497.
See note 15, infra.
The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, an intervenor, made substantially the same contentions.
74 P.U.R.,N.S., 256. Related orders and discussions appear in 4 F.P.C. 15, 497, 638, 28 P.U.R.,N.S., 129; East Ohio Gas Co. v. Federal Power Comm., 6 Cir., 115 F.2d 385.
84 U.S.App.D.C. 312, 316, 173 F.2d 429, 433.
See, e.g., Colorado-Wyoming Gas Co. v. Federal Power Commission, 324 U.S. 626, 65 S.Ct. 850, 89 L.Ed. 1235; Illinois Natural Gas Co. v. Central Illinois Public Service Co., 314 U.S. 498, 503—504, 62 S.Ct. 384, 385—386, 86 L.Ed. 371. See also East Ohio Gas Co. v. Tax Commission, 283 U.S. 465, 470, 51 S.Ct. 499, 500, 75 L.Ed. 1171; The Daniel Ball, 10 Wall. 557, 19 L.Ed. 999.
Federal Power Commission, Twentieth Annual Report (1940), p. 78. See Wheat, Administration by the Federal Power Commission of the Certificate Provisions of the Natural Gas Act, 14 Geo.Wash.L.Rev. 194, 197.
In the Pipe Line cases (United States v. Ohio Oil Co.) 234 U.S. 548, 562, 34 S.Ct. 956, 959, 58 L.Ed. 1459, this Court held that the Uncle Sam Oil Company was not engaged in 'transportation' of oil, within the statutory meaning of that word in the Interstate Commerce Act, where it was 'simply drawing oil from its own wells across a state line to its own refinery, for its own use, and that is all * * *.' This holding as to the meaning of transportation in the Interstate Commerce Act, 49 U.S.C.A. § 1 et seq., has slight force, if any, in determination of the word's meaning under this different and far more comprehensive Act. Furthermore, East Ohio is not merely moving gas for processing in its own plants. It buys and transports it for sale; there is no further processing of any kind, except for eventual reduction of pressure. This puts East Ohio's transportation more nearly in the category of that which we held to bring oil transportation within the coverage of the Interstate Commerce Act. Valvoline Oil Co. v. United States, 308 U.S. 141, 145, 60 S.Ct. 160, 162, 84 L.Ed. 151; Champlin Refining Co. v. United States, 329 U.S. 29, 67 S.Ct. 1, 91 L.Ed. 22. In the latter case transported oil was to be sold in interstate commerce, while here the sale was to be made in intrastate commerce. This difference, however, is no persuasive reason why the special holding in the Uncle Sam case should be expanded to control our holding here.
In both Public Utilities Comm. v. Landon, 249 U.S. 236, 245, 39 S.Ct. 268, 269, 63 L.Ed. 577, and Pennsylvania Gas Co. v. Public Service Comm., 252 U.S. 23, 28, 40 S.Ct. 279, 280, 64 L.Ed. 434, this Court held that states could regulate retail sales of interstate gas to local consumers. In the Landon case the Court reasoned that state control of a local distributing company was permissible because 'interstate movement ended when the gas passed into local mains.' (249 U.S. 236, 39 S.Ct. 270.) The Pennsylvania Gas decision, however, was based on a completely different line of reasoning. The Court held that the gas continued in interstate commerce until it reached the burner tips, but nevertheless permitted state regulation because retail sales presented a problem of local rather than national concern. In State of Missouri v. Kansas Natural Gas Co., 265 U.S. 298, 310, 44 S.Ct. 544, 546, 68 L.Ed. 1027, the Court resolved these conflicting doctrines by readopting the Landon rule. It limited the Pennsylvania Gas holding to its precise facts by interpreting that decision as resting solely on the Landon principle that states could regulate charges for service to local consumers. Public Utilities Comm. v. Attleboro Steam & Electric Co., 273 U.S. 83, 89, 47 S.Ct. 294, 296, 71 L.Ed. 549, reaffirmed this choice of doctrine, applying it to a company which like East Ohio, transmitted its product (electricity) wholly within one state. In East Ohio Gas Co. v. Tax Comm., 283 U.S. 465, 470—472, 51 S.Ct. 499, 500—501, 75 L.Ed. 1171, the Court recognized that the doctrine of Pennsylvania Gas extending interstate commerce to the burner tips was in conflict with and must yield to the doctrine of the Landon and Kansas Gas cases. See note 13 infra. Thus when the Natural Gas Act was passed this Court's decisions had already resulted in a sharp cleavage between local distribution facilities and high-pressure pipe lines serving those facilities.
The Report stated that the proviso was 'not actually necessary, as the matters specified therein could not be said fairly to be covered by the language affirmatively stating the jurisdiction of the Commission.' H.R.Rep. No. 709, 75th Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 3—4. This could only mean that the phrase 'interstate commerce' was construed by the Committee, as it had been by this Court, to exclude 'local distribution.'
The record of the Committee hearings considering the proposed bill is crowded with repeated references to the cases discussed in note 10 supra; no other cases received such emphasis. The General Solicitor for the National Association of Railroad and Utilities Commissioners, for example, explained that the East Ohio case 'established very clearly that a State has jurisdiction to regulate the business of distributing gas after it has been imported, and the pressure has been stepped down to permit of local distribution. It, however, leaves the State authorities still subject to the rule announced in the Kansas case. * * *' Hearings before the House Subcommittee of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, 74th Cong., 2d Sess., 88. The Solicitor of the Federal Power Commission pointed out in his brief to the same committee that 'The States cannot control the wholesale rates extracted for natural gas thus transported, nor may they regulate any other of the phases of interstate transportation.' Id., 16. Amendments which would have specifically exempted from federal regulation all companies operating wholly within one state were proposed but rejected.
See note 10 supra. The East Ohio case cited above concerned the question of whether the company was subject to state taxes. The tax doctrines involved are irrelevant here. Undeniably relevant, however, is the fact that Congress directly considered the doctrine of interstate commerce enunciated in that case: that transportation of out-of-state gas to the local system 'is essentially national—not local—in character and is interstate commerce within as well as without that state.' 283 U.S. 465, 470, 51 S.Ct. 499, 500, 75 L.Ed. 1171.
There are implications in the Court's opinion that under prevailing constitutional doctrine a state might now, in the absence of federal legislation, regulate such a company as Illinois Gas or East Ohio. See Illinois Natural Gas Co. v. Central Illinois Public Service Co., 314 U.S. 498, 504, 62 S.Ct. 384, 386, 86 L.Ed. 371, discussed in Panhandle Eastern Pipe Line Co. v. Public Service Comm., 332 U.S. 507, 512, 68 S.Ct. 190, 192, 92 L.Ed. 128. But compare H. P. Hood & Sons v. DuMond, 336 U.S. 525, 545, 69 S.Ct. 657, 668.
The orders here primarily rest on Commission regulations pursuant to the following sections. Section 6(b) authorizes the Commission to require a natural gas company to file 'an inventory of all or any part of its property and a statement of the original cost thereof, and * * * keep the Commission informed regarding the cost of all additions, betterments, extensions, and new construction.' 52 Stat. 824, 15 U.S.C. § 717e(b), 15 U.S.C.A. § 717e(b). Section 8(a) makes it the duty of such companies to keep 'such accounts, records of cost-accounting procedures,' etc., as the Commission may by rules and regulations prescribe. Section 10(a) similarly requires 'annual and other periodic or special reports'. Section 5(b) authorizes the Commission to 'investigate and determine the cost of the * * * transportation of natural gas by a natural-gas company' even where the Commission has no authority to establish rates for the transportation or sale of that gas. Section 16 vests the Commission with broad powers to prescribe general orders, rules and regulations found 'necessary or appropriate to carry out the provisions of this act.'
The Commission found that East Ohio's estimate placing the cost of compliance at between $1,500,000 and $2,000,000 was 'not convincing, for our experience with other companies with greater property investment indicates that this estimate is considerably exaggerated.' 74 P.U.R.,N.S., 256.
In the East Ohio tax case the reduction of pressure and expansion of volume of the gas at the point of entrance into local supply mains was compared to the breaking of an original package after shipment in interstate commerce, so that its contents could be treated, prepared for sale and sold at retail.
The question before the Court concerned the power of the State of Mississippi to tax wholesale operations of an interstate pipe-line company. Curtly dismissing the State's arguments resting on the fact that the gas pressure had been reduced before the sale for resale, the Court held, as succinctly stated in the headnote: 'The selling of gas wholesale to local, independent distributors from a supply passing into and through the State in interstate commerce, does not become a local affair and subject to a local privilege tax merely because the vendor, to deliver the quantities sold, uses a thermometer and a meter and reduces the pressure.' In its argument to the Court, 284 U.S. at page 42, 52 S.Ct. at page 62, the state had presented the analogy of pressure reduction to the breaking of an original package shipped in interstate commerce, cf. note 1, supra. State Tax Comm. v. Interstate Natural Gas Co., 284 U.S. 41, 52 S.Ct. 62, 76 L.Ed. 156.
In the Lone Star case this Court examined the validity of an order of a Texas commission fixing the rate to be charged by the Lone Star company for gas sold to local distributing companies at the gates of numerous Texas communities. Most of the Lone Star gas was piped from fields in the Texas Panhandle, but across a segment of Oklahoma. A small amount was produced or purchased in Oklahoma, piped into Texas, treated, and added to the local supply. Thus commingled beyond separate recognition, both types of gas were conducted through high-pressure lines and sold to the various retail distributing companies. Because of the interrelated corporate structure of Lone Star and these distributing companies, the Court treated them as one operating unit, and approved the state's exercise of its rate-making power based upon valuation of the entire integrated system.
H.R.Rep.No.709, 75th Cong., 1st Sess. 1—2, adopted without change in S.Rep.No.1162, 75th Cong., 1st Sess. 1—2, said of the proposed bill which became the Natural Gas Act: '* * * The States have, of course, for many years regulated sales of natural gas to consumers in intrastate transactions. The States have also been able to regulate sales to consumers even though such sales are in interstate commerce, such sales being considered local in character and in the absence of congressional prohibition subject to State regulation. See Pennsylvania Gas Co. v. Public Service Commission (1920), 252 U.S. 23 (40 S.Ct. 279, 64 L.Ed. 434). There is no intention in enacting the present legislation to disturb the States in their exercise of such jurisdiction. However, in the case of sales for resale, or so-called wholesale sales, in interstate commerce (for example, sales by producing companies to distributing companies) the legal situation is different. Such transactions have been considered to be not local in character and, even in the absence of Congressional action, not subject to State regulation. (See (State of) Missouri v. Kansas (Natural) Gas Co. (1924), 265 U.S. 298 (44 S.Ct. 544, 68 L.Ed. 1027), and Public Utilities Commission v. Attleboro Steam & Electric Co. (1927) 273 U.S. 83 (47 S.Ct. 294, 71 L.Ed. 549)). The basic purpose of the present legislation is to occupy this field in which the Supreme Court has held that the States may not act.'
Congressional debates on the bill were similarly concerned with those aspects of the natural gas industry over which no state regulatory control existed. These debates were led, in the House, by Chairman Lea of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, and, in the Senate, by Chairman Wheeler of the Committee on Interstate Commerce. In his explanatory statement the former declared, 'The primary purpose of the pending bill is to provide Federal regulation, in those cases where the State commissions lack authority, under the interstate-commerce law. This bill takes nothing from the State commissions; they retain all the State power they have at the present time.' 81 Cong.Rec. 6721. And he added later, 'The object of this bill is to supply regulation in those cases where the State commission has no power to regulate.' Ibid. Committee member Halleck assured the House that, '(T)his bill seeks only to reach those sales where the sale is for resale to the ultimate consumer.' Id., 6723. And in the Senate, Chairman Wheeler declared: 'There is no attempt and can be no attempt under the provisions of the bill to regulate anything in the field except where it is not regulated at the present time. It applies only as to interstate commerce and only to the wholesale price of gas.' 81 Cong.Rec. 9313.
Neither the East Ohio case nor its mechanistic formula was emphasized or even adverted to in the Committee Reports or in the congressional debates.
The suggested construction also comports with the conclusions of the House and Senate Committee reports, H.R.Rep.No.709, 75th Cong., 1st Sess., 3, and S.Rep.No.1162, 75th Cong., 1st Sess. 3: 'That part of the negative declaration stating that the act shall not apply to 'the local distribution of natural gas' is surplusage by reason of the fact that distribution is made only to consumers in connection with sales, and since no jurisdiction is given to the Commission to regulate sales to consumers the Commission would have no authority over distribution, whether or not local in character.'
The following state regulations pages link to this page.

subset: commoncrawl


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Dear Basketball,
From the moment
I started rolling my dad's tube socks
And shooting imaginary
Game-winning shots
In the Great Western Forum
I knew one thing was real:
I fell in love with you.
A love so deep I gave you my all —
From my mind & body
To my spirit & soul.
As a six-year-old boy
Deeply in love with you
I never saw the end of the tunnel.
I only saw myself
Running out of one.
And so I ran.
I ran up and down every court
After every loose ball for you.
You asked for my hustle
I gave you my heart
Because it came with so much more.
I played through the sweat and hurt
Not because challenge called me
But because YOU called me.
I did everything for YOU
Because that's what you do
When someone makes you feel as
Alive as you've made me feel.
You gave a six-year-old boy his Laker dream
And I'll always love you for it.
But I can't love you obsessively for much longer.
This season is all I have left to give.
My heart can take the pounding
My mind can handle the grind
But my body knows it's time to say goodbye.
And that's OK.
I'm ready to let you go.
I want you to know now
So we both can savor every moment we have left together.
The good and the bad.
We have given each other
All that we have.
And we both know, no matter what I do next
I'll always be that kid
With the rolled up socks
Garbage can in the corner
:05 seconds on the clock
Ball in my hands.
5 … 4 … 3 … 2 … 1
Love you always,


text:
10 individual serving sponge cakes
8 oz low fat vanilla yogurt
3/4 cup nutella
Some fruits – strawberries, cherries, kiwi and peaches (or any fruits of your choice)
1. Wash and cut the fruits and set it aside.
2. Warm up the nutella in the microwave for 12 seconds.
3. Mix it well and let it cool down. Fold the yogurt into the nutella. Mix well. Put the nutella mix into a piping bag and pipe it into the center of the cake.
4. Top it with the fruits and set the cake tarts the chill in the fridge before serving.


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Are you getting ready for a long-awaited holiday? You probably have plenty of preparation and planning to do, especially if you have pets. Whether taking your pet with you or leaving it with a trusted caregiver, there is still much to take care of.
Travelling with your pet
If you are travelling by car, you should make sure that you have everything you need to make your pet comfortable. Some things you will want to keep close by include:
- Your pet's leash
- Bags for waste/bathroom stops
- Food
- Water
- A favourite toy
Your pet should be wearing a collar or harness with up-to-date tags on it. Having your pet microchipped is wise, also.
If you happen to be travelling with a cat, you may want to keep them in a carrier or crate. Cats typically won't eat, drink, or use a litter box while on the road. They will probably wait until you reach your destination.
When travelling by air, you will need to contact the airline ahead of time. Each airline has specific guidelines that must be followed, and forms that need to be filled out in advance.
Boarding for your pet
If you are planning to leave your pet in a boarding facility, start looking for the perfect place as early as possible. Visit the facility by yourself first, and then, when you find one you like, bring your pet for a visit if possible. This way your pet isn't going to a completely unfamiliar place when you leave. You will also get a chance to see how the staff and your pet interact before the holiday begins.
Things to look for include:
- Friendly staff
- Cleanliness
- Living quarters with ample space for the pets
- Outside areas for pets to play if the weather permits
- Do the animals look happy?
- Do animals have fresh water?
- What policies are in place in case of an emergency?
In-home pet sitter
You may prefer having someone come to, or stay at, your home. If this is the case, you will want to interview potential pet sitters. Handle these interviews much like you would if you were hiring for a professional position.
- Ask for references and check them
- Watch the potential sitter interact with your pet
- Ask how they would handle an emergency
- Be clear about your expectations
Once you have chosen your pet sitter, be sure you provide them with a schedule to follow. Also, give them information on how to contact you and your veterinarian.
Whether your pet comes with you on your holiday or stays behind, you will want to be sure to take plenty of time to make appropriate arrangements. Your holidays will be much more enjoyable when you go into them with the peace of mind that comes from knowing your pet is having all its' needs met and is safe. Your pet will appreciate it too.
If this article has inspired you to think about your own unique situation and, more importantly, what you and your family are going through right now, please contact your advice professional.
(Feedsy Exclusive)


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Quantum dots—tiny, intense, tunable sources of colorful light—are illuminating new opportunities in biomedical research, cryptography and other fields. But these semiconductor nanocrystals also have a secret problem, a kind of nervous tic. They mysteriously tend to "blink" on and off like Christmas tree lights, which can reduce their usefulness.
Scientists at JILA have found one possible way to solve the blinking problem and have induced quantum dots to emit photons (the smallest particles of light) faster and more consistently. The advance could make quantum dots more sensitive as fluorescent tags in biomedical tests and single-molecule studies and steadier sources of single photons for "unbreakable" quantum encryption. JILA is a joint venture of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado at Boulder.
By bathing the dots in a watery solution of an antioxidant chemical used as a food additive, the JILA team increased photon emission rate four- to fivefold, a "shocking" result because the rate at which light radiates is generally considered an immutable property of the dot, JILA/NIST Fellow David Nesbitt says. The JILA scientists dramatically reduced the average time delay between excitation of a quantum dot and resulting photon emission from 21 nanoseconds to 4 nanoseconds while reducing the probability of blinking up to 100 fold. Nesbitt calls blinking the "hidden dirty secret" of quantum dots. (Nesbitt notes that blinking is not always an annoyance. For example, it can serve as a measurement probe of very slow rates of electron flow through nanoscale materials).
The quantum dots used in the JILA experiments were made of cadmium-selenide cores just 4 nanometers wide coated with zinc sulfide. When a dot is excited by a brief laser pulse, one electron is separated from the "hole" it normally occupies. A few nanoseconds later, the electron typically falls back into the hole, sometimes producing a single photon—always in a color that depends on dot size, greenish-yellow in this case. But every so often the electron fails to make it back to its hole and instead is ejected to imperfections on the dot's surface. The chemical added at JILA apparently attaches to these imperfections, blocking the electron from being trapped and thereby preventing the dot from blinking off.
The JILA research was funded in part by the National Science Foundation and NIST.
V. Fomenko and D. J. Nesbitt. Solution control of radiative and nonradiative lifetimes: a novel contribution to quantum dot blinking suppression. Nano Letters. Published online Dec. 21, 2007.


text: We're busy getting ready for our Fall Open House! We'll have seasonal treats , (think apple cider, spice cake, ginger snaps!) special deals, and a sidewalk sale! We have all kinds of wonderful things to make your home cozy and warm! From farmhouse to Mid Century to French Country, we have […] A Fall Open House: Visit Vintage & Co. In Lancaster ...October 12, 2017 in Blog Posts tagged Armoire / Autumn / Fall Decor / Fall Open House / Farmhouse Decor / Harvest / Lancaster County / Outside of STore / Things to do in Lancaster County / Vintage Shop


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Mosquito Netting
We have 3 cherry trees growing in our backyard. They are about 8 years old. The varieties are Bing, Rainier, and Royal Rainier. In previous years, I have found maggots inside some of the cherries. Last year, most of the cherries were infested with maggots, especially on the Royal Rainier. I noticed small flies buzzing around the fruit. I suspected that the flies were spotted wing drosophila (SWD). Most of the cherries were brown and inedible looking from the insect damage. I ended up throwing all of them away.
I was on the verge of removing all of our cherry trees, because I didn't want to implement a spraying regime. I had the same problem with raspberries in the past. I sprayed the raspberries back then, but it didn't help. I ended up removing all of my raspberries. But I wasn't ready to give up on the cherries just yet. It has taken several years for them to reach the size they are and to start producing fruit. Also, removing the cherry trees now would require much more work than removing raspberries.
So this year I tried something different. I have netted the cherry trees with bird netting in past years to keep birds away, but the holes in bird netting are too large to keep out insects. The only type of netting I am aware of that has a mesh fine enough to keep out small flies is mosquito netting. So earlier this year, I bought some mosquito netting.
After our cherry trees were out of bloom in mid-April, I wrapped mosquito netting around our Royal Rainier cherry tree and tied it with twine around the trunk. I then rolled any open parts of the netting together and sealed the openings with clothes pins to keep insects from flying or crawling in. It helped that I have pruned this tree to keep it under 8 feet tall. I didn't bother to net the other two cherry trees, because they set very few cherries this year. Here is what our tree looks like netted.
Last weekend, I harvested most of the Royal Rainier cherry crop. Here's what they looked like inside the tree.
And here is what they looked like after harvest.
They look beautiful and taste amazing. Not one of the cherries appears to have been touched by birds or insects. We have eaten most of them already, and we haven't found maggots in any of them. The netting also allowed me to leave the cherries on the tree long enough to fully ripen.
Netting a tree is extra work, and it is probably not practical for large trees over 10-12 feet tall. However, I think it was worth the effort. Mosquito netting is easier to work with than bird netting, because it doesn't get caught on things as easily. And it keeps out all kinds of pests including insects, birds, and squirrels.
In fact, I am so happy with the results of the mosquito netting that I am using it to cover some of my other fruits and vegetables. For example, I am using it to cover broccoli and cauliflower to keep out cabbage moths and aphids. I am also using it to cover my blueberry bushes as shown below. Even though the netting has a fine mesh, it appears to be letting in enough sunlight for these plants to remain healthy and grow.
June 08 2017 | Blueberries and Cherries | Comments Off on Mosquito Netting


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The Burgtec composite pedal is everything you'd expect from a Burgtec pedal but at a more affordable price point.
Uncompromised grip, rugged durability, the exact same sculpted simple lines, fully backed up with spares and at an affordable price.
The best of both worlds can exist.
- Nylon and Fibreglass Body
- SCM415 Cromo Axle
- All replaceable steel pins
- 16mm Profile
- 1mm Dish
- Weight 376g
- Available in Burgtec Black, Race Red, Deep Blue, Purple Rain, Iron Bro Orange, Kash Bronze, White, Electric Yellow


text:
A Minor Food Slump
Haaaaaaaappppy Friday!
You may have noticed that there weren't too many food photos this past week. That's because I went on a lazy hiatus this week with my meals.
Breakfasts have been my typical banana and peanut butter, lunches have been leftover meatloaf or whatever I can throw down during my lunch break…
…and dinners have been more leftover meatloaf! Lame!
However, yesterday morning I did attempt to be more creative and I made myself what turned out to be an egg pancake made with one egg and 1-2 egg whites. I cooked the eggs over too high of heat on the stove and they quickly turned from an omelet into a pancake. In the pancake was sautéed onions, green peppers, and kale, topped with avocado and Parkers Farm salsa.
It wasn't my proudest breakfast moment, but it did taste alright and kept my tummy satisfied well until lunch.
Once lunch rolled around, I ate my usual breakfast of pb and banana (haha I just couldn't go a DAY without it) and had a bunch of other random bites. I have got to turn this food slump around, because it is NOT exciting.
To tell you the truth, this entire week has been one of those weeks where everything seemed to take twice the effort; preparing meals, workouts, work, daily chores…everything. I really think that it has to do with the cold weather around here that keeps droning on and on. I am so ready for warm weather. I feel like I did pretty well this winter without feeling any symptoms of seasonal affective disorder, but now that it's technically spring, I am realizing I have had enough of the cold and I know I'm not alone on this one.
Out with the cold and in with the warm please!
I did try to get snazzy with my workout yesterday afternoon. I was feeling sluggish and slightly under the weather after work, so decided that a calm 30-minute yoga session might be nice.
I rolled out the yoga mat and started flipping through the selections OnDemand looking for some yoga, but ended up scrolling across a 45-minute session called Grace and Gusto which combines Pilates and ballet. Being that I used to dance and miss it dearly, I decided to give it a whirl.
The verdict: It was fun and different and was the perfect pace for my mood (not super fast). It didn't include a lot of jumping around, which was what I was looking for, and the instructor did a great job of combining both ballet and Pilate moves into the session. I was glad I did it and it reminded me that I need to step outside of my comfort zone more often and try new workouts.
As for today's workout, my tentative plan is to go for a run. We will see what kind of mood I am in though! I seem to be kind of a rollercoaster lady lately.
My goals for the upcoming week are to jazz up my meals and to reenergize my motivation for more intense workouts. Who knows, maybe my body was telling me to lay low this week, but I'm ready for amp it up again!
Question of the day: Have you tried any new recipes lately? Any new workouts?


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'Top Gun: Maverick' Has Best Opening Weekend of Tom Cruise's Career
Audiences have not lost the need for speed, even 36 years after the original Top Gun.
Buoyed by strong reviews, Top Gun: Maverick dominated the weekend box office over Memorial Day. According to estimates, the movie is expected to gross $124 million from Friday to Sunday, and $151 million total across the entire Memorial Day Weekend. That's good enough for the best opening weekend of star and producer Tom Cruise's entire career — and the second-best Memorial Day weekend opening ever behind Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (which made $153 million from Friday to Monday on Memorial Day in 2007).
For Cruise, it's his biggest opening weekend ever by a massive margin. His next best debut came in 2005's War of the Worlds, which opened with $64.8 million. Not far behind that was Mission: Impossible — Fallout (the sixth and most recent film in that franchise) which earned $61.2 in its theatrical debut back in 2018. The original Top Gun, for point of comparison, made just $8.1 million in its opening weekend back in 1986, although it was only playing in about 1,500 theaters compared to Maverick's 4,700. Top Gun still went on to become the biggest movie of 1986, grossing $180.4 million — the equivalent of $475 million when you adjust that number for inflation.
For Paramount, the huge opening weekend is a validation of their decision to keep Top Gun: Maverick on the shelf for two years while they waited for theaters to fully reopen following the worst of the Covid pandemic. The movie's massive set pieces and impressive aerial combat sequences were clearly designed to be seen on a big screen. It wouldn't have made anywhere near the same impact playing on Paramount+ or some other streaming service. Whether it was the promise of those mind-boggling visuals, or the appeal of seeing Tom Cruise finally back in one of his signature roles, audiences showed up in big numbers for the film.
In another box office note: By the end of the weekend Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will have passed The Batman to be the top-grossing movie in the U.S. in 2022 with $375 million in ticket sales to date.


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Dodd-Frank's Say on Pay: Will It Lead to a Greater Role for Shareholders in Corporate Governance?
(Cornell Law Review, 2012)
"Say on pay" gives shareholders an advisory vote on a company's pay practices for its top executives. Beginning in 2011, Dodd-Frank mandated such votes at public companies. The first year of "say on pay" under the new ...


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'Saved By the Bell' Cast Reacts to Dustin Diamond's Death
The TV world was shocked today by the death of Dustin Diamond, best known as Screech on the archetypal '90s teen sitcom Saved By the Bell (and both of its spinoffs, Saved By the Bell: The College Years and Saved By the Bell: The New Class). Diamond was hospitalized just a few weeks ago, when he was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. Less than a month later, he's gone. Diamond was only 44 years old.
Most of his colleagues from Saved By the Bell have already reacted to their former co-star's sudden passing. Mark-Paul Gosselaar, who worked with Diamond the longest dating back to Saved By the Bell's earliest incarnation — as the Disney Channel 1988 series Good Morning, Miss Bliss — wrote he was "deeply saddened" to learn about Diamond's death. Calling him "a true comedic genius" he said he "will miss those raw, brilliant sparks that only he was able to produce."
Mario Lopez, who co-starred with Diamond on Saved By the Bell and appears on the current Saved By the Bell revival series on Peacock, posted a recent photo of Diamond when he appeared on Access Hollywood and wrote that "the fragility of this life is something never to be taken for granted."
Saved By the Bell co-star Tiffani Thiessen wrote that she was "deeply saddened by the news" of Diamond's passing and also noted how life is "something we should never take for granted."
On Instagram, Elizabeth Berkley posted a photo of Diamond from back in the Saved By the Bell days, with the caption "I'm grateful to have gotten to create with Dustin when we were at the beginning of our dreams coming true. I will hold onto those sweet memories and the laughs we shared. Rest in peace."
Diamond did not appear on the first season of Peacock's Saved By the Bell revival. With the series already renewed for a second season, it will be interesting to see how the show pays tribute to him. It has to do something.
Gallery — The Best TV Shows of 2020:


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