Opinion ID: 339939
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: status of the commission's opinions

Text: 18 The threshold question we confront is the current status of Opinion Nos. 565 and 565-A and the orders respectively accompanying them as exertions of the Commission's adjudicatory authority. No one argues that either of these opinions or orders lacked Commission majority when they issued. No one suggests that Opinion No. 565-A, when announced, did not effectively modify Opinion No. 565. Rather, the dispute relates to the impact upon the substantive and procedural aspects of those decisions which may have been made by the commissioners' subsequent votes on the order denying rehearing of Opinion No. 565-A. The votes which Commissioners Carver and Brooke cast on that order are at the center of the controversy.
19 Opinion No. 565 and its companion order were supported by the majority votes of Chairman White and Commissioners O'Connor and Bagge in every aspect save one. 105 The one divergence was on the question whether the just and reasonable rate was to be utilized retroactively as well as prospectively as the basis for computing producer refunds to Texas Eastern. 106 On that issue, Chairman White took the affirmative 107 and Commissioners O'Connor and Bagge the negative 108 but they were joined by Commissioners Carver and Brooke for decisional purposes, 109 although the latter two dissented for other reasons. 110 20 Similarly, Opinion No. 565-A and the order related to it were sustained, initially at least, by the unqualified votes of Chairman Nassikas and Commissioner Bagge, 111 and by the votes which two of their disagreeing colleagues, Commissioners Carver and Brooke, reluctantly contributed to enable the disposition dictated by that opinion and order; 112 only Commissioner O'Connor voted against that disposition. 113 The order denying rehearing of Opinion No. 565-A was backed by a majority consisting of Chairman Nassikas and Commissioners O'Connor and Bagge, 114 with Commissioners Carver and Brooke undertaking to withdraw [their] reluctant concurrence in that opinion; 115 and it was the purported withdrawal that bred the first controversy which we consider. 21 PSC, 116 deeming the withdrawal effective, contends that the majority voted originally effectuating Opinion No. 565-A in its modification of Opinion No. 565 evaporated with the vote on the order refusing rehearing of Opinion No. 565-A. In other words, PSC claims that when Commissioners Carver and Brooke retracted their joinder in Opinion No. 565-A, that opinion perished and Opinion No. 565 became automatically reinstated. Texas Easter n argues similarly, though more limitedly, that after the loss--because of t he withdrawal--of a majority of the commissioners for Opinion No. 565-A, the re could no longer be the certificate condition, fashioned in that opinion, converting the responsibility for producers payments from the contract total of $134 million to a liability for continuing payments until cessation o f gas production in the transferred leasehold properties. 22 The Commission, on the other hand, eschewing the withdrawal, asserts that the majority vote for Opinion NO. 565-A when issued was unaffected by the subsequent voting with respect to the applications for rehearing of that opinion, and in that position the producers unite. The issue thus boils down to whether the attempted withdrawal changed the 4-1 vote for Opinion No. 565-A and its suspension of the certificate conditions to a vitiating 3-2 vote against Opinion No. 565-A, thus restoring Opinion No. 565 as the final and only decision of the Commission. It is important to resolve the dispute at the outset so that we may know just what we are legitimately called upon to review.
23 The authority to entertain and dispose of applications for rehearing of Commission orders is defined by the Natural Gas Act. Upon such application, the Act provides, the Commission shall have power to grant or deny rehearing or to abrogate or modify its order without further hearing. 117 This grant, in terms, runs to the Commission is an entity apart from its members, and it is its institutional decisions--none other--that bear legal significance. 118 Only as an entity can the Commission formulate valid original decisions; by the same token, only in that character can it fashion new decisions remaking those which it has already promulgated. 119 Collective action is prerequisite to any alteration of a preexisting order, whether a grant or denial of rehearing, 120 or a total abrogation or partial modification of that order. 121 24 By institutional decisions, we mean, of course, a decision by a majority vote duly taken. That is the rule of the common law, 122 which we have hitherto applied to administrative action, 123 and the rule by which, we notice judicially, the Commission has regularly functioned. There being no statutory specification to the contrary, we have no difficulty in accepting it as the governing rule here. 124 And since each of the five members of the commission 125 cast a vote toward each of the three decisions relevant here, it follows that a concurrence of at least three votes was essential to constitute any given feature of the voting an aspect of commission action. 126 It follows too, that the efficacy of action taken by majority vote is in no wise affected by the fact that there is also a minority. 127 [A] dissent no more reduces the legal effect of [an agency's] findings and order than does a dissenting opinion of a member of a court detract from the legal effect of the court's judgment. 128 25 We perceive no incongruity with logic or precedent in these conclusions. On the contrary, neither the requirement of institutional action which Congress has imposed on the Commission nor the principle of majority rule which the Commission has itself impressed upon its decision-making processes could tolerate any other. Collection action, we repeat, is the only authorized means to a decision, including a decision to undo a prior decision. If an agency proceeding could be reopened by the unilateral action of a member who casts a vote for the majority, then, irrespective of the conviction of remaining members that the interest in repose outweighed their doctrinal differences, a single defection from the majority could thwart may a careful considered resolution, and wreak havoc on the stability of the agency's decision. We have not been referred to nor have we found any authority for such a novel and frightening proposition. 26 We do not mean to suggest that a commissioner's vote, once made, imprisons him in an intellectual strait-jacket. The point is that an individual change of mind cannot change an institutional decision unless it garners a majority vote to do so. Nor is there any requirement, statutory or otherwise, that members of administrative agencies maintain consistent positions throughout the course of lengthy proceedings. Commissioners, no less than judges, 129 may cast their votes solely to void an impasse, 130 or otherwise to draw the administrative phase to a close. Commissioners Carver and Brooke utilized their votes on Opinion No. 565-A to achieve an objective deemed more important than adherence to personal precept. 131 Commissioner O'Connor voted against rehearing of Opinion No. 565-A despite his differences with that opinion because he felt that the litigation was ripe for judicial review. 132 But, in each instance, what counted in the definition of agency action was the vote rather than the individual view. 27 In sum, a change of individual position, to affect the institutional decision, must occur as a part of a collective effort directed toward that decision. Once made, the decision remains the decision of the body, immune from alternation save by another collective effort of that body. Individual endeavor to modify an institutional decision, so long as it is only that, is of no consequence in the administrative process.
28 The petitions for rehearing of Opinion No. 565-A and its related order 133 presented to the Commission the questions whether the petitions should be granted or denied, and whether the Commission should abrogate or modify that opinion. 134 The Commission plainly decided those questions in the negative. The order on rehearing declares the Commission's opinion that the questions raised by the Applicants are sufficiently covered by or are clear from the language of Opinion No. 565-A and order, so that further discussion is unnecessary. 135 The order also sets forth the Commission's findings that [t]he assignments of error and grounds for rehearing set forth in the applications for rehearing ... present no facts or legal principles which would warrant any change in or modification of Opinion No. 565-A and its accompanying order. 136 The sole disposition effected by the order was that [t]he applications for rehearing ... [and] the motion for reconsideration ... are denied. 137 29 It is also evident that the Commission's decision to deny rehearing of Order No. 565-A was supported by the votes of a majority of the commissioners. Chairman Nassikas and Commissioner Bagge subscribed fully to the order of denial. 138 Commissioner O'Connor concurred in the denial, 139 and while he filed a statement expressing a change of view as to the amounts which the producers should receive from Texas Eastern, 140 he announced categorically his position that [t]he granting of rehearing at this time would not serve any constructive purpose, 141 and that an additional rehearing would not be fruitful. 142 Only Commissioners Carver and Brooke dissented, adhering to their thesis that the lease-sale transaction should be approved as it was. 143 30 We hold, then, that Opinion No. 565-A was not abrogated or modified by the vote on the petitions to rehear it. 144 Three commissioners--a commission majority--concurred in refusing rehearing of Opinion No. 565-A, and that was the only action which commanded a majority vote. Although the coalitions spawning Opinion No. 565-A were altered by the poll on the petitions for rehearing, the only proposal garnering a majority was the denial of rehearing; and the vote of the majority was, unequivocally, to leave Opinion No. 565-A intact. It bears repeating that the order recited the decision that [t]he assignments of error and grounds for rehearing set forth by the applicants for rehearing present no facts or legal principles which would warrant any change in or modification of Opinion No. 565-A or the order effectuating it. 145 Hardly could the Commissioners comprising the majority have made plainer their purpose not to change Opinion No. 565-A in any respect whatsoever. 31 In consequence, the matters before us for review are Opinion No. 565 as modified by Opinion No. 565-A, and Opinion No. 565-A without modification, and the orders respectively accompanying those opinions. To the issues tendered for review we now turn.