# United States v. Champlin Refining Company/Dissent Black

* Court Documents
* Case Syllabus
* Opinion of the Court
* Dissenting Opinions Douglas Black
United States Supreme Court
341 U.S. 290
United States v. Champlin Refining Company
Argued: March 8, 9, 1951. --- Decided: May 7, 1951
Mr. Justice BLACK (dissenting).
From whatever angle this case is approached, it seems to me that the holding of the Court is wrong. The decision rides roughshod over clear statutory language making the Hepburn Act applicable to interstate oil-carrying pipe lines, and makes impossible enforcement of the Act as Congress intended. The decision undercuts and I think overrules several prior cases without mentioning this fact. And this appellant, Champlin, is even given a second trial and victorious relitigation of the same issues we had previously determined against it. Finally, the opinion suggests to me that the Court accepts what I deem to be a frivolous constitutional challenge to the Act, namely that Congress is without power to force oil-carrying interstate pipe lines to serve as common carriers for hire.
The Court's holding that Champlin must comply with § 20 of the Hepburn Act, but need not comply with § 6, cannot be reconciled with clear language in those sections or with our previous decisions construing the same language. Section 20 authorizes the Interstate Commerce Commission to require that 'all common carriers subject to the provisions of this Act' file, among other things, certain annual reports; § 6 commands that 'Every common carrier subject to the provisions of this Act' shall file schedules of rates with the Commission. I do not understand why it should be necessary to labor the obvious-this language requires Champlin (if it is a 'common carrier subject to the * * * Act') to comply with § 6 if it is required to comply with § 20, or to comply with § 20 if it is required to comply with § 6. The Court holds that Champlin is a 'common carrier subject to' the Act, and accordingly sustains the Commission's order to file reports under § 20. Paradoxically, however, it then proceeds to hold that the same Champlin, though 'subject to' the Act, need not comply with § 6. How the Court gives the identical language in the two sections such different meanings is left a mystery.
The Court may be saying that § 6 is something sui generis, that no pipe-line company need comply with that section unless it is something more than a 'common carrier subject to the * * * Act'. While the meaning of this 'something more' is not made clear, the Court, in overturning the Commission order does suggest in passing that it might possibly sustain an order requiring Champlin to comply with § 6 upon Commission findings that the company exploited 'a competitive advantage simply by refusing to deal with independent producers having no comparably cheap method of reaching consuming markets' or that Champlin enjoyed a 'monopoly' position in its area. Certainly nothing in the Hepburn Act should encourage such judicial creativeness for § 6 applies to 'Every common carrier subject to the * * * Act' in language which does not logically admit of limiting the section's coverage to carriers that have refused 'to deal with independent producers' or achieved 'monopoly' status. That § 6 would or could be thus restricted was not hinted at in the Pipe Line Cases, (U.S. v. Ohio Oil Co.), 234 U.S. 548, 34 S.Ct. 956, 58 L.Ed. 1459 (where this section was involved), nor in Valvoline Oil Co. v. United States, 308 U.S. 141, 60 S.Ct. 160, 84 L.Ed. 151, nor in our decision in the first Champlin case, Champlin Rfg. Co. v. United States, 329 U.S. 29, 67 S.Ct. 1, 91 L.Ed. 22. It should be noted that the dissenting justices in Champlin I thought that an additional 'something' was necessary before the Hepburn Act was applicable; they believed that none of the Act's provisions should apply to pipe-line companies unless they were 'common carriers in substance.' But neither those justices nor anyone else, so far as I know, have ever before suggested that the Court can pick and choose sections into which additional requirements can be imported. This possibility remained for today's majority to discover, 46 years after passage of the Hepburn Act.
Far more important than the judicial exemption of Champlin from filing papers under § 6, however, is the Court's holding that pipe-line companies engaged in interstate transportation of their own petroleum products need not act as public carriers for hire unless they have already voluntarily become 'something more' than interstate oil-carrying pipe lines. The proper answer to this basic question in the case turns on § 1 of the Hepburn Act: '(T)his Act shall apply to any corporation or any person or persons engaged in the transportation of oil or other commodity * * * by means of pipe lines * * * who shall be considered and held to be common carriers within the meaning and purpose of this Act * * *.'
That Champlin is a common carrier within the literal language of this provision is shown by the unchallenged findings of fact made by the I.C.C.: Champlin, a fully integrated company, produces, refines, transports and markets petroleum products. Through a wholly owned subsidiary it also buys, gathers and transports to its refinery oil produced from the wells of others. Its trunk pipe line extends 516 miles across five states from its refinery at Enid, Oklahoma, to its terminal at Rock Rapids, Iowa. Although application of the Act does not depend on a pipe-line company's size, Champlin is by no means a small company; rather, it occupies an important position in the area it serves. But for the Court's holding, I should have thought that § 1 of the Act on the admitted facts obviously required Champlin to serve as a common carrier for the products of others.
That the Hepburn Act did convert Champlin into a public carrier for hire is made even clearer by the legislative history. The pipe-line provision was sponsored in 1906 by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts who offered to amend a pending railroad bill in a manner which would convert interstate oil-carrying pipe lines into common carriers subject to regulation by the I.C.C. The Lodge Amendment reflected dissatisfaction with monopoly conditions in the petroleum industry. Such conditions, it was thought, had been brought about in the main through control of oil-carrying pipe lines by large integrated companies (especially the Standard Oil Company) which were using their control to exclude independent producers and refiners from this cheap transportation facility. But the ensuing debate left no room for doubt that the purpose of the Amendment, as its language clearly showed, was to deprive any oil company, not merely Standard, of power to utilize pipe-line control to crush competition. To this end, as is shown by an Appendix following this opinion, the Amendment was designed to make public or common carriers for hire out of every private pipe-line company transporting petroleum products in interstate commerce. Senators who were opposed charged that the passage of the Amendment would do exactly this against the will of 'private' carriers. Lodge and other proponents freely admitted it, explaining that anything less would be ineffective. All congressional efforts to narrow the Amendment to cover only companies already acting like common carriers were defeated. Therefore it is strange to say, as the Court does, that applying the pipe-line provisions so as to make Champlin a common carrier for hire would 'subvert the chief purpose of the Act.' Stranger still is the Court's unexplained apprehension that requiring all interstate pipe-line companies to serve as public carriers for hire would somehow 'foster' monopoly.
The Court, without mentioning it, necessarily overrules one or more of our previous decisions construing the Hepburn Act. In the Pipe Line Cases, supra, it was held that the Hepburn Act converted into common carriers for hire all private pipe-line companies 'engaged in the transportation of oil or other commodity' across state lines, a decision which meant that all such companies are by law required to offer their services to the public. In the first Champlin case, supra, we determined that this appellant was so 'engaged.' Consequently, today's decision allowing Champlin to refrain from filing tariffs under § 6 necessarily overrules either the Pipe Line Cases or Champlin I, or both. If they are to be overruled, the Court should say so. I would not overrule either.
Nor do I understand how today's holding can be reconciled with Valvoline Oil Co. v. United States, supra, where we held that Valvoline was a 'common carrier subject to' (308 U.S. 141, 60 S.Ct. 161) the Act. The pattern of operations of Valvoline and Champlin are identical with two minor exceptions: (1) Valvoline's interstate pipe lines transported crude oil while Champlin's trunk line transports gasoline. This difference is immaterial; even assuming that 'gasoline' is not 'oil' within the meaning of § 1, that section makes the Act apply not merely to any pipe-line company carrying 'oil' but to pipe-line companies carrying any 'other commodity.' (2) Valvoline chose to operate its gathering lines and purchase oil from independent producers in its own corporate name while Champlin chooses to operate its gathering lines and purchase oil in the name of a wholly owned subsidiary. The Court, however, had no difficulty in the Pipe Line Cases in treating as a single unit the Standard Oil Company and its wholly owned or even partly owned subsidiaries.
It should be noted, moreover, that Valvoline unsuccessfully made the same contention that the Court now accepts in order to relieve Champlin from its statutory duties. Thus, Valvoline attempted to avoid becoming a common carrier for hire by claiming that the Act applied only to companies enjoying a monopoly position in an area, a position not held by Valvoline because public pipe lines for hire adequately served the fields where Valvoline bought its oil. The I.C.C. refused to accept Valvoline's proposed interpretation of the Act, and we necessarily did the same in affirming the Commission's order.
The Court nevertheless seeks to distinguish the Valvoline case on the ground that Valvoline 'carried the products of over 3,800 independent owners and operators'. The quoted language correctly states a fact only if it is understood to mean that Valvoline made purchases from 3,800 independents and then carried the purchased oil in its pipe line. This fact, however, certainly does not distinguish the two cases. Like Valvoline, Champlin carries the 'oil of others' all the way from the well to the market area: over half of the oil and gasoline carried by Champlin is originally purchased as crude oil from independent producers in the field before transportation begins. As noted above, Champlin does make these purchases through a wholly owned subsidiary, rather than in its own corporate name, but this fact is unimportant.
Since there is no substantial difference between the operations of Champlin and Valvoline, and between the legal arguments made in the two cases, I conclude that, verbalisms aside, the effect of today's decision is to undermine the Valvoline holding. In this situation I think Valvoline should be expressly overruled. Why, in fairness, should Valvoline and others similarly situated be required to serve as common carriers for hire while Champlin is left free to conduct its pipe lines as it chooses?
In the first Champlin case (308 U.S. 141, 60 S.Ct. 161) we upheld findings of fact made by the I.C.C., 49 Val.Rep.(I.C.C.) 463, 470, that appellant was 'engaged in the transportation' and was 'a common carrier subject to the provisions of' the Act. Since these questions were 'distinctly put in issue and directly determined,' Champlin may not dispute them in this second proceeding between the same parties unless there is a departure from the principles most recently announced in United States v. Munsingwear, 340 U.S. 36, 38, 71 S.Ct. 104, 106. Yet three concurring justices today appear to take the position that Champlin is not 'engaged in transportation,' and is therefore not a common carrier subject to the Act, a position which this Court emphatically rejected in Champlin I. I also believe that the majority's position is unjustified under the Munsingwear principle when the effect (as distinguished from the language) of their decision is considered.
Why should the Court interpret the Hepburn Act in a way which nullifies its purpose? I am forced by process of elimination to consider whether the decision reflects either a hostility to the policy of the Act or an unarticulated belief that it is unconstitutional, if enforced as written. Neither this Court nor any other should strangle an Act because of judicial disagreement with congressional policy. If destruction of the Act results from a feeling that the Constitution forbids Congress to convert private companies into public servants, I think that this view should be announced here, as it was by a majority of the court below. Pipe-line companies, administrators of the law, the bench, the bar, and the Congress are entitled to no less. Of course, the same constitutional contention was expressly rejected in 1914 in the Pipe Line Cases, supra: As to companies which, like Champlin, built their lines after passage of the Act, Justice Holmes, speaking for the Court, dismissed the challenge brusquely with less than a sentence, stating merely that 'there can be no doubt that it (the pipe line provision) is valid.' 234 U.S. at page 561, 34 S.Ct. at page 958. Again, in 1922, the Court, relying on the Pipe Line Cases, supra, rejected a somewhat similar constitutional agrument as 'futile to the point almost of being frivolous.' Pierce Oil Corp. v. Phoenix Rfg. Co., 259 U.S. 125, 128, 42 S.Ct. 440, 441, 66 L.Ed. 855. Surely a contention deemed 'almost frivolous' twenty-nine years ago should not now be reinvigorated by implication.
No one can be sure that under the Act as now rewritten by the Court the Commission can or should succeed in forcing any oil company-even those now complying with the Act-to carry gasoline or oil for others as a common carrier. Even without the newly engrafted, Court-created hurdles, the pipe-line provisions, for one reason or another, have never been enforced as effectively as might be desired. Perhaps, therefore, no great harm will result from the Court's polite but sure frustration of the Hepburn Act's purpose. Some people in and familiar with the oil industry, however, believe that this Act should be strengthened, not weakened. Be that as it may, I deem it my duty to vote to enforce the Act as Congress has passed it.
I would reverse.
On May 4, 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt transmitted to the Congress a report describing and condemning various monopolistic practices in the petroleum industry. 40 Cong.Rec. 6358. Senator Lodge of Massachusetts on the same day introduced an amendment to § 1 of the Hepburn Act making pipe-line companies engaged in the interstate transportation of oil and other commodities common carriers: '(That the provisions of this act shall apply to) Any corporation or any person or persons engaged in the transportation of oil or other commodity, except natural gas or water for municipal purposes, by means of pipe lines, or partly by pipe lines and partly by railroad, or partly by pipe lines and partly by water, who shall be considered and held to be common carriers within the meaning and purpose of this act * * *.' Id. at 6361.
Senator Foraker of Ohio immediately objected to the broad scope of the Lodge proposal: 'I do not want to make any opposition to the Senator's amendment, but it occurs to me that the amendment ought to be further amended, so as to provide that it shall apply only to pipe lines operated for the public. I do not understand how you could compel a man who has a private pipe line of his own to become a common carrier * * *. I think such a limitation ought to be put in the Senator's amendment by an amendment to the amendment that it shall apply to all pipe lines that are carrying for the public, and not to private lines that an individual or a single corporation may have laid down and put into operation for its own benefit.' Id. at 6361.
Senator Nelson in reply stated that Foraker's suggestion would 'practically nullify the provision, because every one of these pipe lines cay say 'we refuse to do business for the public.' Practically the (Lodge) amendment would be of no use at all.' Id. at 6365. And Senator Lodge added: '(T)he amendment suggested by (Senator Foraker) to the effect that no pipe line, unless it carries for the public, shall come under this rule, will, as (Senator Nelson) says, absolutely destroy the value of my amendment.' Id. at 6365.
During the course of the debate an attempt was made to make the Lodge amendment applicable only to carriers 'for the public' or to 'transportation for hire' or 'for compensation,' but it was unsuccessful. Id. at 7000. Senator Lodge again stated that such an amendment would 'absolutely destroy' his proposal 'so far as its effectiveness is concerned.' Id. at 7000.
There can be no doubt but that the proponents knew and stated their purpose. Senator Lodge declared: '(T)he purpose of this amendment is to bring the transportation of oil and other commodities within the interstate-commerce law. Oil is one of the greatest articles of interstate commerce carried in this country, and it is now absolutely outside and beyond any Government regulation whatsoever.' Id. at 6365. Later he added: 'All pipe lines owned by any company within the United States * * * are made common carriers.' Id. at 7001. Senator Clay, speaking about the pipe-line provision, observed: 'This bill makes every corporation engaged in the transmission of oil a common carrier. Every private corporation transmitting its own oil * * * is made a common carrier by the (Lodge) amendment * * *.' Id. at 7009. And Senator Culberson said: 'Nothing is left to the courts for construction, but the statute itself declares that any corporation, or any person or persons engaged in transporting oil by pipe lines-of course, as interstate commerce-are common carriers, and are declared to be such in this act of Congress, subject to the authority of this act * * *.' Id. at 7005. Senator Bailey, in the final debate on the measure, described the Lodge proposal as the "pipe-line amendment' by which we mean the amendment that makes the pipe lines common carriers.' Id. at 9647.
The 'commodities clause' of the Hepburn Act was designed to prevent railroads from owning businesses whose shipments they carried. When that clause was first considered in the Senate, it applied to 'common carriers subject to' the Act. Some senators realized that the 'commodities clause'-read together with the Lodge Amendment making every pipe-line company subject to the Act would force a divorcement of pipe lines from refineries. To avoid this, they again suggested that the Lodge proposal be amended so as to apply only to pipe lines operating for the public. Senator Lodge said: 'What I want to suggest to the Senator is that this (original Lodge) amendment makes the pipe lines and the oil companies subject to all the provisions of the bill. If the Senator thinks there is an injustice, the place to remedy it is on page 5, at that amendment (the commodities clause), and not at this one (the Lodge amendment).' Id. at 7009. Accordingly, the 'commodities clause' finally passed by Congress referred specifically to railroads. 34 Stat. 585.

## Notes

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* 1 2 34 Stat. 584. The Hepburn Act was passed in 1906 as an amendment to the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, 24 Stat. 379, and may now be found in 49 U.S.C. §§ 1-27, 49 U.S.C.A. §§ 1-27. All quotations in the text follow the original language of the Hepburn Act, this Court twice having held that subsequent minor modifications changed neither the purpose nor the meaning of the Act. Valvoline Oil Co. v. United States, 308 U.S. 141, 145-146, 60 S.Ct. 160, 162, 84 L.Ed. 151; Champlin Rfg. Co. v. United States, 329 U.S. 29, 32, note 4, 67 S.Ct. 1, 2, 91 L.Ed. 22.
* 1 2 34 Stat. 593, now 49 U.S.C. § 20, 49 U.S.C.A. § 20, which provides that the I.C.C. may require reports 'from carriers' and '* * * the term 'carrier' means a common carrier subject to this chapter * * *.'
* 1 2 34 Stat. 586, now 49 U.S.C. § 6, 49 U.S.C.A. § 6: 'Every common carrier subject to the provisions of this chapter shall file * * *.'
* 1 2 The mystery is not lessened by the Court's use of the concept of the 'Commission's jurisdiction' in connection with tariffs. For the duty of a common carrier to file tariffs is not dependent on any 'jurisdiction' or any order of the I.C.C. Section 6 unequivocally commands that common carriers subject to the Act 'shall file.' See note 3, supra.
* 1 2 I am unable to find any support for this interesting theory in the language or history of any part of the Act, or from any other source. But see Splawn, Commissioner, dissenting, 274 I.C.C. 416; compare the opinion of Commissioners Aitchison, Splawn and Alldredge in the first Champlin case, 49 Val.Rep. (I.C.C.) 463.
* 1 2 See Part III, infra.
* 1 2 The holding of the last two cited cases was that Valvoline and Champlin had to comply with 49 U.S.C. § 19a(a) and (e), 49 U.S.C.A. § 19a(a, e). Section 19a, like § 6 and § 20, applies to 'every common carrier subject to the provisions of this chapter * * *.'
* 1 2 I do not think that the Court in Champlin I reserved 'as an independent statutory issue on a proper record' (emphasis added) the question whether Champlin could be converted into a public carrier for hire; rather the question left open was whether the Fifth Amendment barred converting Champlin into a public carrier. Of course, the Government argued in Champlin I, as it did in Valvoline, that the Act's provisions should be treated as 'separable' in passing on the constitutional question raised. But the Government has never intimated that the sections of the Act as a matter of statutory construction were 'separable.' Even an assumption that the sections were separable, however, would not justify the Court in exempting Champlin from § 6 unless it could find support for such an exemption in some statutory language. The Court has pointed to no such exclusionary language; I can find none. Moreover, as an Appendix to this opinion, infra, 341 U.S. 317, 318, 71 S.Ct. 730, shows, Senator Lodge intended to make 'the pipe lines and the oil companies subject to all the provisions of the bill' unless expressly excluded in a particular provision.
* 1 2 34 Stat. 584, now 49 U.S.C. § 1, 49 U.S.C.A. § 1: '(1) * * * The provisions of this chapter shall apply to common carriers engaged in-* * * (b) (t)he transportation of oil or other commodity * * * by pipe line * * *. (3) * * * (a) The term 'common carrier' as used in this chapter shall include all pipe-line compenies; * * *.' See note 1, supra.
* 1 2 Mr. A. G. E. Leverton, Comptroller of the Champlin Refining Company testified: 'We have never produced more than approximately 45 percent of the crude oil required by our refinery and hence have always been compelled to purchase on the open market, more than half of our crude oil requirements * * *.'
* 1 2 The total cost of Champlin's pipe line and appurtenant facilities as of December 31, 1940, was $3,189,028.66. Champlin, according to the I.C.C., owns: (1) Approximately 149 oil wells on 53 leases in Oklahoma, 45 wells on 13 leases in Kansas, and 52 wells on 10 leases in Texas; (2) approximately 75,000 acres of undeveloped leases; (3) the Enid refinery which processes approximately 4 1/2 million barrels of crude oil annually; (4) all the stock of the Cimarron Valley Pipe Line Company which owns and operates 450 miles of gathering lines in Oklahoma; (5) 723 tank cars; (6) approximately 316 filling stations and 248 gasoline and oil bulk plants; (7) the products pipe line involved in this case; (8) trucks and other equipment used to promote the producing, purchasing and refining of crude oil and the marketing of the products thereof. 49 Val.Rep. (I.C.C.) 463-464; 274 I.C.C. 410.
* 1 2 The 'pipe line provision' was added to § 1 of the Hepburn Act and is the language quoted from § 1 in the text accompanying note 9, supra. That provision is now found in 49 U.S.C. § 1, 49 U.S.C.A. § 1. See note 9, supra.
* 1 2 Immediately before Senator Lodge introduced his amendment, President Theodore Roosevelt transmitted to the Congress a report on the transportation of petroleum. 40 Cong.Rec. 6358. The report pointed out the advantage possessed by Standard Oil as a result of its control of pipe lines. H.R.Doc. No. 100, 59th Cong., 1st Sess. 29, 36-37, 60-62, 398-400. For the background of monopolistic practices in the petroleum industry at that time, see generally Beard, Regulation of Pipe Lines as Common Carriers (1941), 10-27; 2 Sharfman, The Interstate Commerce Commission (1931), 59, 96; Whitesel, Recent Federal Regulation of the Petroleum Pipe Line as a Common Carrier, 32 Cornell L.Q. 337, 341. For history of Standard Oil practices, see Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States, 221 U.S. 1, 31 S.Ct. 502, 55 L.Ed. 619; United States v. Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey, C.C., 173 F. 177; Tarbell, The History of The Standard Oil Company (1925). Control of pipe-line transportation is still important today. See, e.g., the statement of Alfred M. Landon: 'Very little crude oil is moved in any other way than by pipe line. There is only a small amount moved by intrastate shipments. The independent producer therefore finds himself at the mercy of his competitor in the business of producing oil when that competitor controls practically one hundred per cent of the transportation facilities, because it becomes simply a question of bookkeeping as to the end of the business in which this big monopoly shows its profit. It can pay less for the oil and make its profit from the transportation. The independent refiner is choked also by this same means-the control of the transportation facilities.' Hearings before House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce on H.R. 16695, 71st Cong., 3d Sess. 59.
* 1 2 As to the danger involved in interpreting this Act as aimed at a single corporation, see McFarland v. American Sugar Refining Co., 241 U.S. 79, 36 S.Ct. 498, 60 L.Ed. 899.
* 1 2 Justice Holmes wrote for the Court: 'The provisions of the act are to apply to any person engaged in the transportation of oil by means of pipe lines. The words 'who shall be considered and held to be common carriers within the meaning and purpose of this act' obviously are not intended to cut down the generality of the previous declaration to the meaning that only those shall be held common carriers within the act who were common carriers in a technical sense, but an injunction that those in control of pipe lines and engaged in the transportation of oil shall be dealt with as such.' 234 U.S. at pages 559-560, 34 S.Ct. at page 958. Both the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Commerce Court had construed the statute as requiring all interstate, oil-carrying pipe lines to serve as common carriers for hire. 24 I.C.C. 1 (1912); Prairie Oil & Gas Co. v. U.S., Com.Ct.1913, 204 F. 798. It is true that the Commerce Court held the Hepburn Act unconstitutional as a taking of property without due process of law, one judge dissenting. But on appeal, Pipe Line Cases, 234 U.S. 548, 34 S.Ct. 956, 58 L.Ed. 1459, this Court reversed, holding the Act constitutional: As to those pipe lines in existence before passage of the Act, one ground assigned by the Court was that they were already common carriers in substance. As to pipe lines built subsequent to the passage of the Act, see Part V, infra.
* 1 2 329 U.S. at page 34, 67 S.Ct. 1, 91 L.Ed. 22. In the Pipe Line Cases, supra, the Uncle Sam Oil Company, which operated its business on the border between Oklahoma and Kansas, was held not to be so 'engaged' because it was 'simply drawing oil from its own wells across a state line to its own refinery, for its own use, and that (was) all * * *.' 234 U.S. at page 562, 34 S.Ct. at page 959. There is no Uncle Sam problem in this case since a majority of the Court today reaffirms the former holding that Champlin is 'engaged in transportation.'
* 1 2 But cf. United States v. Elgin, J. & E.R. Co., 298 U.S. 492, 56 S.Ct. 841, 80 L.Ed. 1300; United States v. South Buffalo R. Co., 333 U.S. 771, 68 S.Ct. 868, 92 L.Ed. 1077.
* 1 2 As to the factual similarity between Champlin's and Valvoline's domination (or lack of domination) in the fields served, compare 274 I. C. C. 413 ("[a]pparently, common-carrier pipe-line transportation is available to any small refiner in [Champlin's] area desiring such transportation") with 47 Val. Rep. (I. C. C.) 534, 535 ("[a]t least one common-carrier pipe-line company serves each of the fields reached by the Valvoline").
* 1 2 See note 10, supra. Whether Champlin buys from more or less than 3,800 independent producers does not appear in the record. But the exact number cannot have legal significance here. See Valvoline Oil Co. v. United States, 308 U.S. 141, 147, 60 S.Ct. 160, 163, 84 L.Ed. 151.
* 1 2 Even if Champlin produced all the oil it transported, the Act would require its regulation because of the effect of exclusive pipe-line ownership on Champlin's price policy at the other end of the pipe line. For one major purpose of the Act was to insure competition in the petroleum industry by regulating pipe-line transportation so that the independent refiner, the jobber and the consumer would not be charged exorbitant prices by the integrated companies. See 40 Cong.Rec. 6365, 6366; Note, Public Control of Petroleum Pipe Lines, 51 Yale L.J. 1338, 1347 1348. It is noteworthy that the price of Champlin's gasoline was 1/8¢ per gallon higher at Superior, Kansas (a point not served by any other common carrier pipe line), than it was at Rock Rapids, Iowa (a point served by a common carrier line, hence in a competitive market); Rock Rapids is 260 miles further from the Enid refinery than is Superior. The effect of such control was pointed out long ago by this Court in Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States, 221 U.S. 1, 77, 31 S.Ct. 502, 523, 55 L.Ed. 619, as follows: 'As substantial power over the crude product was the inevitable result of the absolute control which existed over the refined product, the monopolization of the one carried with it the power to control the other ... .'
* 1 2 'The major oil companies have their greatest control in the transportation of crude oil. * * * The control of transportation today by the majors appears in many respects to be just as complete and effective as was the case of the Standard Oil Trust.' Report of the Temporary National Economic Committee, 76th Cong., 3d Sess., Monograph 39 (1941), p. 28. This report contains an excellent discussion of transportation problems in the petroleum industry. Id. at 19-28. And see Kemnitzer, Rebirth of Monopoly (1938), 78-95; Whitesel, Recent Federal Regulation of the Petroleum Pipe Line as a Common Carrier, 32 Cornell L.Q. 337, 355 369.
* 1 2 See, e.g., the statement of Alfred M. Landon: 'The crushing strength of the old Standard Oil Co. lay in the fact that, of its thirty-odd companies, some were producers only, some were transporters only, some were refiners only, and some were marketers only.   'But the master minds that controlled the old Standard Oil Co. coordinated these thirty and odd companies into one vast company-a great single, integrated, coordinated 'unit' that, as a corporate entity, did all of these things (producing, transporting, refining, and marketing)-and all of them within the corporate inclusiveness of 'one' company.   'Therein rested the terrific, the overpowering strength of the old Standard Oil Co.   'To-day, from a corporate standpoint, we have the 'equivalent,' many times over, of the old Standard Oil Co. ...   'It is inevitable that the only escape from monopolistic domination in the oil industry-and it is being rapidly accomplished through mergers and integration-is to clearly, definitely, and effectively segregate, first, the entire pipe line transportation system of the oil industry from the rest of the industry. The first effect of this segregation would be the substitution of competition in the transportation of crude oil for the present practice which, in each individual case, is, to all practical purposes, a monopoly.' Hearings before House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce on H.R. 16695, 71st Cong., 3d Sess. 60, 61. For views against the proposed strengthening of the Hepburn Act see House Report on Pipe Lines, 72d Cong., 2d Sess. (1933), especially Special Counsel Splawn's conclusions, p. lxxviii. See also Kemnitzer, Rebirth of Monopoly (1938), 87-90; F. R. Black, Oil Pipe Line Divorcement by Litigation and Legislation, 25 Cornell L.Q. 510.