Court Opinion

ID: 9732413
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 16:19:30.387827+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:23:25.945352
License: Public Domain

*693Black, J.
(concurring). I agree with the reasoning and final conclusion reached by Justice T. M. Kavanagii. In token thereof my signature has been affixed to his opinion.
I feel nonetheless that some attention should be given to the primary issue, the issue which formed the basis of our order granting leave. See 10 Mich App 218, 221. There the first paragraph of Judge J. H. Gtllis’ opinion reads:
“The troublesome issue presented by this appeal is whether the legislature has granted exclusive authority to the public service commission to regulate public electric utilities so as to preclude a local government from attempting such regulation through its duly enacted zoning ordinances.”
When the public service commission considered and approved plaintiff Edison’s plans for construction of the St. Clair-Pontiac-Wayne Station transmission line, the commission wrote Edison (November 13, 1964):
“We find that your plans comply with this commission order 1868 and 1679, and the same have been approved. Enclosed please find one set of such plans marked with our approval. A duplicate set of plans is being retained in our files. This approval pertains only to the character of construction and does not confer any rights to carry out construction until all necessary local franchises, permits, and authorizations have been secured and all legal requirements have been complied with. The approval does not apply to any railroad crossings which may be involved in the proposed construction as separate permits are necessary for crossing railroad company tracks. The approval of your plans constitutes your authority for proceeding with the proposed construction insofar as the character of construction is concerned.”
*694This language, employed as it is and has been by Edison’s statutory superintendent, stems from a statutorily authorized regulation which the conE mission placed in effect many years ago. 1 The rule appears now in the 1954 State administrative code as R 460.584(4) (b) (p 5944) :
“The approval of plans in accordance with the procedure herein set forth pertains only to the character of construction and does not confer any rights upon the applicant to carry out construction until all necessary local franchises, permits and authorizations have been secured and all legal requirements have been complied with.”
The language of the rule, annexed as it was to the commission’s approval of Edison’s plans and specifications for construction of this transmission line, is broad enough to exact compliance not only with constitutional and statutory requirements pertaining to local franchises and permits but also with “all legal requirements” of a local nature. The phrase “all legal requirements” certainly would include and require compliance with all validly applicable zoning regulations.
The commission, well within the powers of superintendence and rule-malring vested with it by statute, has in this instance chosen to limit what otherwise is clearly exclusive authority to regulate the construction and maintenance of heavy duty long-distance electric transmission lines, controlled only as that authority is by constitutional restraints, notably those appearing in sections 19, 25, 29, and 30 of the seventh article, Constitution of 1963.  *695There accordingly is no present room for a holding that the commission intended that its said approval be pre-emptible of validly applicable local zoning ordinances. This is not to say that the commission may not so pre-empt. It is to say that the commission has not yet done so.
T. G. Kavanagh, J., did not sit.

 Rulos and regulations promulgated by a statutorily authorized administrative agency have the force and effect of law. See Columbia, Broadcasting System v. United States (1942), 316 US 407, 417—419 (62 S Ct 1194, 86 L Ed 1563) and discussion in Douglas v. Edgewater Park Company (1963), 369 Mich 320, 331, 332.