Opinion ID: 363964
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Congressional Purposes and Intent.

Text: 27 Were the meaning of the statutory language less plain, we would be somewhat inclined to adopt petitioners' construction in light of the apparent purposes of the 1976 amendments. The legislative history of the 1976 amendments contains extensive Congressional findings about the financial decline of the industry, occasioned in no small part by the cumbersome slow process of making rates. 37 28 The ratemaking scheme advanced by petitioners would be a quite rational answer to the damaging delays which have often occurred before discriminatory intrastate rates are raised to the interstate level. Under petitioners' construction, after 120 days of inaction by the state authorities the railroads would place the rates into effect by filing them (with notice) under § 10707. Shippers would be protected from unlawful rates through the customary suspension and refund provisions of § 10707, 38 and the autonomy of the states would be assured for at least the 120 day exhaustion period. 29 Moreover, this construction would avoid some anomalous possibilities admitted by the scheme Congress chose. First, to the extent that § 11501 ousts the Commission of concurrent jurisdiction for 120 days, 39 it may (if state authorities do not take their national obligations seriously) simply tack that period of delay onto the time ordinarily consumed by a § 13(4) investigation. Second, if state authorities do not act within 120 days, there will always be some period of time during which no one may implement the rates the state may not, having been ousted of jurisdiction, and the ICC may not until it has conducted the full hearing assured by § 11501. 40 Although to be sure the paralysis would be relieved by expediting the ICC hearing, former tardigrade practice is not a source of hope. 30 Of course, petitioners' construction would not be free of anomaly either. The procedural consequences attaching to the passage to 120 days without final action might encourage the railroads to delay state proceedings in order to avail themselves of § 10707. On the other hand, state authorities could bar recourse to § 10707 simply by acting even if summarily and adversely, on the 119th day. Although we would not expect such perverse behavior, 41 it is hardly a strong argument for petitioners' construction that such conduct would be encouraged. 31 In any event, we think it apparent that the changes intended by Congress, at least in enacting § 13(5), were undramatic. Although other of the 1976 amendments did streamline aspects of railroad ratemaking, 42 § 13(5) operates, we think, exclusively as a jurisdictional provision. That is, of course, precisely what its minimal legislative history said that it did. The Conference Committee Report states: 32 (The bill) assure(s) State regulatory bodies at least 120 days exclusive jurisdiction over an intrastate rate case, require(s) a railroad to exhaust its State remedy for a change in intrastate rates, and provide(s) that if a State failed to act on the railroad's application for rate change within 120 days the Interstate Commerce Commission would have exclusive authority to determine these intrastate rates. 43 33 Insofar as § 13(5) may be said to expand federal authority over intrastate rates, it does so only by ousting the states of their former concurrent jurisdiction after 120 days of inaction. As we have explained, the language Congress chose cannot support a more expansive reading, and nothing in the legislative history suggests its choice of language was mere drafting error. 34 Even were the linguistic argument closer, we would be hesitant to construe loosely an ambiguous passage so as to unsettle the practice of conducting a prior hearing. A finding (after hearing) of discrimination against interstate commerce has always conditioned the exercise of federal power over intrastate rates. 44 Inasmuch as the most plausible construction of the statute's language would continue the practice, we decline to strain a reading which Congress could freely enact, especially in view of Congress' historic sensitivity to the legitimate role of the states in this field.