Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Wisconsin et al. (347 U.S. 672)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 7, 1954 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 347 U.S. 672 · 74 S. Ct. 794
- Docket
- No. 280
- Argued
- April 6, 1954
- Decided
- June 7, 1954
- Term
- October Term 1953
- Vote
- 5–3
- Majority author
- Justice Minton
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
How the Justices voted
- Majority
- Chief Justice Warren, Justice Black, Justice Frankfurter (wrote a concurrence), Justice Reed, Justice Minton (wrote)
- Dissenting
- Justice Douglas (wrote), Justice Clark (wrote), Justice Burton
Opinion excerpt
Mr. Justice Minton delivered the opinion of the Court. These cases present a common question concerning the jurisdiction of the Federal Power Commission over the rates charged by a natural-gas producer and gatherer in the sale in interstate commerce of such gas for resale. All three cases are an outgrowth of the same proceeding before the Power Commission and involve the same facts and issues. The Phillips Petroleum Company is a large integrated oil company which also engages in the production, gathering, processing, and sale of natural gas. We are here concerned only with the natural-gas operations. Phillips is known as an “independent” natural-gas producer in that it does not engage in the interstate transmission of gas from the producing fields to consumer markets and is not affiliated with any interstate natural-gas pipeline company. As revealed by the record before us, however, Phillips does sell natural gas to five interstate pipeline transmission companies which transport and resell the gas to consumers and local distributing companies in fourteen states. Approximately 50% of this gas is produced by Phillips, and the remainder is purchased from other producers. A substantial part is casinghead gas — i. e., produced in connection with the production of oil. The gas flows from the producing wells, in most instances at well pressure, through a network of converging…
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