Court Opinion

ID: 9465963
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:01:25.39514+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:28.253006
License: Public Domain

BARRETT, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the result reached based upon the facts herein. When Amarex renewed or “top leased” its expired oil and gas lease covering the same quarter section previously committed under the 1970 gas purchase contract, the properties were thus dedicated to the August 12, 1971, small producer certificate of public convenience and necessity. In legal effect, Amarex, upon renewal of the subject lease, became as much a “successor-in-interest” as Phillips did in Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Federal Power Commission, 556 F.2d 466 (10th Cir. 1977), thus binding the leasehold interest to the interstate dedication.
In all of the significant decisions upholding the Commission’s determination that production is dedicated to the interstate market under a certificate of public convenience and necessity, notwithstanding the variations of factual and legal context, one basic, primary proposition controls, i. e., that there can be no withdrawal from the interstate dedication once gas flowed in interstate commerce. United Gas Pipe Line Company v. McCombs, - U.S. -, at -and-, 99 S.Ct. 2461, 61 L.Ed.2d 54 (1979); Sunray Mid-Continent Oil Co. v.. FPC, 364 U.S. 137, 80 S.Ct. 1392, 4 L.Ed.2d 1623 (1960); Atlantic Refining Co. v. Public Service Commission of New York, 360 U.S. 378, 79 S.Ct. 1246, 3 L.Ed.2d 1312 (1959); Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Federal Power Commission, supra.
In United Gas Pipe Line, supra, the Court stated that it was re-affirming its interpretation of the reach of § 7(b) of the Act set forth in California v. Southland Royalty Co., 436 U.S. 519, 98 S.Ct. 1955, 56 L.Ed.2d *132505 (1978): That even expiration of the lease did not terminate the obligation to continue selling the gas (produced therefrom) in the interstate market.
In my view, Southland cannot be broadened beyond United Gas Pipe Line Company, et al., to include dedications beyond those lands included in oil and gas leases from which production was in fact realized and sold in the interstate market. References in the majority opinion to “fields" does, I believe, substantially broaden the reach of the Commission’s regulatory power under § 7(b) which is not warranted.