Opinion ID: 348607
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Motor-Ocean and Water-Ocean Carriers

Text: 51 The decision of the ICC in Ex Parte No. 261 embraces joint through rates entered into between rail-ocean, motor-ocean, and domestic water-ocean carriers. 48 The discussion in Part II.A.I, supra, has focused on the rail-ocean paradigm in exploring the question of ICC jurisdiction. In addition, petitioner raises a separate argument that the ICC in any event has no jurisdiction over motor-ocean or domestic water-ocean joint rates. 49 We disagree. 52
53 Section 302(a) of Part II of the Act broadly confers jurisdiction on the ICC over the transportation of passengers or property by motor carriers engaged in interstate or foreign commerce . . . . 50 Section 303(a)(11) in turn defines foreign commerce as 54 commerce, whether such commerce moves wholly by motor vehicle or partly by motor vehicle and partly by rail, express, or water, (A) between any place in the United States and any place in a foreign country. 51 55 It is necessary to elucidate two points concerning the language of section 303(a)(11) before proceeding to examine additional statutory provisions concerning joint motor/ocean rates. First, it appears clear from the structure of the provisions that the reference to water carriers in section 303(a)(11) is a reference to FMC-regulated carriers operating in foreign commerce. Second, since the definition of foreign commerce in § 303(a)(11) tracks the language of § 1(1), the foreign commerce jurisdiction under Part II is as broad as that under Part I. Therefore, Part II foreign commerce jurisdiction also extends to nonadjacent as well as adjacent foreign countries. 56 Section 316(c) of the Act provides that (c)ommon carriers of property by motor vehicle may establish reasonable through routes and joint rates, charges, and classifications with other such carriers or with common carriers by railroad and/or express and/or water . . . . 52 Furthermore, section 317(a) of the Act provides that 57 (e)very common carrier by motor vehicle shall file with the Commission . . . tariffs showing all the rates . . . in connection (with) foreign commerce . . . between points on its own route and points on the route of any other such carrier, . . . when a through route and joint rate shall have been established. 53 58 The foregoing sections, taken together, represent an explicit conferral of jurisdiction on the ICC to accept for filing joint through rates established by motor and ocean carriers. Indeed, in light of this language, the Commission's prior policy of not accepting the joint rates appears to be the position most inconsistent with the plain statutory mandate, not the rules embodied in Ex Parte No. 261. 59 In challenging the ICC's authority to accept joint motor/ocean rates for filing, petitioner points to the 1962 amendment to section 316(c) which conferred jurisdiction on the ICC over joint motor/ocean rates between Alaska and Hawaii on the one hand and the contiguous forty-eight states. 54 Petitioner suggests that, in the absence of a similar amendment covering foreign commerce, no joint rate authority over foreign commerce exists. 55 We disagree with petitioner on this point. 60 The 1962 amendment to section 316(c) went well beyond purporting to confer the kind of jurisdiction over Alaska/Hawaii joint rates that the ICC has asserted over foreign commerce in the present proceeding. 56 The purpose of the 1962 amendment to section 316(c) was to make Alaska/Hawaii joint rates  subject to the provisions of this part, thereby bringing such joint rates in their entirety under substantive ICC rate regulation and thereby ousting the FMC from jurisdiction over the same rates. 57 Here, by contrast, the ICC has only asserted jurisdiction to accept the joint rates for filing, not to regulate the ocean portion of the rate and not to duplicate or replace the FMC's functions. Thus the 1962 amendment concerning Alaska and Hawaii does not suggest that similar legislation is required in order to support the ICC's action here. 61 Insofar as the 1962 amendment may have been deemed necessary by Congress merely to permit filing of joint motor/ocean Alaska and Hawaii rates, it must be remembered that as of 1962 the ICC was still applying the policy enunciated in Cosmopolitan Shipping Co. against even accepting such rates. Legislation was one way to change this agency practice. A well-reasoned and fully explained change of policy by the agency itself as was done in Ex Parte No. 261 represents another way to accomplish this same result. A congressional intent to ratify the ICC's restrictive 1908 policy decision can hardly be inferred from the fact that Congress rejected this policy in a specific area of commerce where the filing of joint rates was deemed necessary in 1962. 58 62
63 The basic statutory jurisdiction over domestic water carriers involved in through movements in foreign commerce is provided in Part III of the Act. 59 64 In defining foreign commerce transportation subject to Part III of the Act, section 902(i) includes transportation 65 (3) wholly by water, or partly by water and partly by railroad or motor vehicle, from or to a place in the United States to or from a place outside the United States, but only (A) insofar as such transportation by rail or by motor vehicle takes place within the United States, and (B) in the case of a movement to a place outside the United States, only insofar as such transportation by water takes place from any place in the United States to any other place therein prior to transshipment at a place within the United States for movement to a place outside thereof, and, in the case of a movement from a place outside the United States, only insofar as such transportation by water takes place from any place in the United States to any other place therein after transshipment at a place within the United States in a movement from a place outside thereof. 60 Section 905(b) of the Act provides that 66 It shall be the duty of common carriers by water to establish reasonable through routes with other such carriers and with common carriers by railroad, for the transportation of persons or property, and just and reasonable rates, fares, charges, and classifications applicable thereto, and to provide reasonable facilities for operating such through routes, and to make reasonable rules and regulations with respect to their operation and providing for reasonable compensation to those entitled thereto. Common carriers by water may establish reasonable through routes and rates, fares, charges, and classifications applicable thereto with common carriers by motor vehicle. Common carriers by water subject to this chapter may also establish reasonable through routes and joint rates, charges, and classifications with common carriers by water subject to the Shipping Act, 1916, as amended, or the Intercoastal Shipping Act, 1933, as amended (including persons who hold themselves out to transport goods but who do not own or operate vessels) engaged in the transportation of property in interstate or foreign commerce between Alaska or Hawaii on the one hand, and, on the other, the other States of the Union, and such through routes and joint rates, and all classifications regulations, and practices established in connection therewith shall be subject to the provisions of this chapter. In the case of joint rates, fares, or charges it shall be the duty of the carriers parties thereto to establish just, reasonable, and equitable divisions thereof, which shall not unduly prefer or prejudice any of such carriers. 67 Section 906(a) in turn requires all joint rates which are established to be filed with the Commission. 61 68 The only material difference between Part III of the Act and Parts I and II is that section 905(b), supra, does not explicitly authorize domestic water carriers voluntarily to enter into joint rates with water carriers in foreign commerce. 62 However, we find nothing in Part III purporting to prohibit filing voluntarily adopted joint rates in foreign commerce between FMC and ICC-regulated water carriers. 69 The question is whether Congress, without explicitly stating that domestic and foreign water carriers can voluntarily enter into and file joint rates, intended, sub silentio, to preclude the ICC from issuing rules permitting domestic water carriers voluntarily to do so just as their competitors, the rail and motor carriers, do. 70 We do not think that Part III can be read so narrowly or that Congress' silence on this point can be elevated into such significance as to put Part III carriers in a different posture than their motor and rail carrier competitors. Congress did provide in section 302(i) that ICC-regulated water carriers were subject to ICC jurisdiction in performing the domestic leg of movements in foreign commerce. We believe that this is ample authority, together with the rule-making power of section 904, 63 to permit the limited action that the ICC has taken in Ex Parte No. 261. 71