Opinion ID: 252068
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: The Advantages of Total Separation

Text: 68 We come now to the last of the three basic determinations upon which the Commission predicated its order. 69 The Commission's opinions make it abundantly clear that it considered total separation of these warring giants a major benefit 52 and relied upon it as an element of the public interest supporting abandonment. 53 70 It is not clear, however, what the Commission thought these benefits were. The Commission said several times in its opinions that total separation would make each system more 'efficient' and 'stronger.' But it failed to make clear whether this efficiency and strength would be achieved by the termination of controversy or from some other consequence of total abandonment. 71 Petitioners argue that it was the termination of controversy upon which the Commission relied. They contend that this was improper because the Commission affrmed the Examiner's exclusion of evidence relating to the origins of and reasons for the controversy, saying: 72 '   we are fully aware of the fact that there is a long history of controversy between the parties, but we find nothing in the Act setting forth the existence of controversy as a basis for permitting natural gas service to be abandoned. If such a basis could be found in the law, the issue herein would have long since been resolved.' 54 73 Assuming, as petitioners argue, that the Commission relied upon the termination of controversy as a ground for ordering total abandonment, we cannot agree that the exclusion of this evidence necessarily precluded the Commission from such reliance. The Commission could nonetheless find a proper basis for its action in its great knowledge of the controversies, derived from the mountains of records amassed by these antagonits over many years in previous cases before it. Based upon this experience, it might know, for example, whether the expenses and delays of litigation and the other social costs of the controversy have adversely affected quality and cost of service to the ultimate consumer. Such information is, of course, relevant to the question of whether the public convenience permits abandonment. Similarly, it may have an expert's knowledge that does not require evidence in the record that each system will be more efficient and stronger after abandonment. 74 But we think that, in these circumstances, the Commission cannot invoke particular knowledge, sight unseen, under the cloak of past experience. Instead it must reveal what this knowledge is and how it supports the conclusion for which it is invoked. Since it is by no means clear from this record that (1) abandonment will terminate the series of controversies between the parties 55 or (2) that 'each system would more efficiently procure gas supplies and serve its own customers if separated from the other one,' the Commission's action cannot be sustained on this ground. Federal Communications Comm. v. RCA Communications, 1953, 346 U.S. 86, 96-97, 73 S.Ct. 998, 97 L.Ed. 1470.