Court Opinion

ID: 9426289
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:17:28.700627+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:00.108507
License: Public Domain

Mr. Chief Justice Burger,
concurring in the judgment.
I concur in the judgment of the Court, but with respect I cannot agree that the holding in Sunray Mid-Continent Oil Co. v. FPC, 364 U. S. 137 (1960) (Sunray II), is as categorical as the Court suggests. I therefore do not agree that the Court of Appeals’ reading of Sunray II is “patently erroneous.” Ante, at 503.
The optional procedure established by Order No. 455 does not appear to be precisely the same as a limited-term certificate. Under the new procedure, the Commission issues a permanent certificate to the producer. The producer is therefore authorized to supply the interstate market indefinitely. The additional and novel feature is that the producer is apparently given a free choice at the end of the contract term; he can continue to supply the interstate market pursuant to his permanent certificate, or he can abandon any further sales at the end of the particular contract term. This decision is left entirely in the hands of the producer. The Commission has no voice whatever in this critical decision; and it does not know in advance what the producer will do. This seems to me far different from granting a limited-term certificate; in that instance, the FPC knows that the particular supplies of gas will end at a date certain, *506unless both the producer and the Commission decide that the supply should continue.
This factor of unregulated choice by the producer raises the very evils which the Court pointed out in Sunray II, supra:
“[E]very independent producer of natural gas . . . [would] be free at a future date, untrammeled by Commission regulation, to reassess whether it desired to continue serving the interstate market.” 364 U. S., at 142.
The evil seems even more acute here. For the Commission has abdicated entirely to the producer the eventual choice of supplying or cutting off gas to interstate markets. This relinquishment of regulatory authority seems to me inconsistent with the purposes and design of the Natural Gas Act.
However, the Court accepts Sunray II as affording broad discretion to the Commission in such matters, and stare decisis compels me to accept the result.