Felix Frankfurter

“ While ameliorating the effect of disorderly competition, market controls generate problems of their own, not encountered under a competitive system. Such new problems are not outside the conprehensive scope of the great Commerce Clause. Nor does the Commerce Clause impose requirements of geographic uniformity. (Compare Art. I, § 8, cl. 1 and cl. 4.) Congress may devise, as it has done in the Sugar Act of 1948, a national policy with due regard for the varying and fluctuating interests of different regions. ”

“ Congress, it is insisted, has not established refined sugar quotas for the mainland refiners as it has for the offshore areas. Whatever inequalities may thereby be created, this is not the forum for their correction for the all-sufficient reason that the extent and nature of inequalities are themselves controversial matters hardly meet for judicial solution. ”

“ In addition, it is claimed that since the total supply of raw sugar permitted to enter the mainland market is limited the mainland refiners are in effect also subject to the refined sugar quota, although in contrast to the unchanging quotas of the territories the mainland quota will vary with changes in the total consumer demand. Because this demand tends to be stable, however, the mainland refiners' share of the refined sugar has not, it is urged, greatly expanded during the years when quotas were in effect. ”

“ Thus, while the mainland refiners are legally free to purchase and refine all sugar within the raw sugar quota and Puerto Rican refiners are limited to their shares of the refined sugar quota, Congress apparently thought that Puerto Rican refiners operated at costs sufficiently low to insulate them from mainland competition. ”

“ But Congress did not think it was feasible to bind the Secretary as to the part his 'consideration' of these three factors should play in his final judgment-what weight each should be given, or whether in a particular situation all three factors must play a quantitative share in his computation.
It was evidently deemed fair that in a controlled market each producer should be permitted to retain more or less the share of the market which he had acquired in the past. Accordingly, past marketings were to be taken into consideration in the Secretary's allotments. ”

“ The Secretary duly considered 'the processings of sugar' to which proportionate shares pertained, but concluded that this factor could not fairly be applied. This was so because it referred to processings of raw sugar from sugar cane, whereas the three largest Puerto Rican refining concerns restricted themselves to refining raw sugar after it had already been processed. He felt bound, therefore, to give no weight to this factor in the sum he finally struck, and gave equal weight to past marketings and ability to market. ”

“ Nor do the bare words of § 205 (a) confine the Secretary in the responsible exercise of discretion beyond the limitation inherent upon such delegated authority. He is not free to be capricious, to act without reason, that is, in relation to the attainment of the objects declared by § 205 (a) . The very standards for his conduct, the attainment of 'fair, efficient, and equitable distribution' preclude abstract or doctrinaire categories. A variety of plans of allotment may well conform to the statutory standards. ”

“ Congress could not itself, as a practical matter, allot the area quotas among individual marketers. The details on which fair judgment must be based are too shifting and judgment upon them calls for too specialized understanding to make direct congressional determination feasible. Almost inescapably the function of allotting the area quotas among individual marketers becomes an administrative function entrusted to the member of the Cabinet charged with oversight of the agricultural economy of the nation. ”

“ In short, Congress gave the Secretary discretion commensurate with the legislative goal. Allocation of quotas to individual marketers was deemed an essential part of the regulatory scheme. The complexity of problems affecting raw and refined sugar in widely separated and economically disparate areas, accentuated by the instability of the differentiating factors, must have persuaded Congress of the need for continuous detailed administrative supervision. ”

“ To fix quotas on a strict historical basis is hard on latecomers into the industry or on those in it who desire to expand. On the other hand, to the extent that newcomers are allowed to enter or old-timers to expand there must either be an increase in supply or a reduction in the quotas of others. Many other factors must plague those charged with the formulation of policy-the extent to which projected expansion is a function of efficiency or becomes a depressant of wage standards ”

“ In addition, § 207 of the Act establishes fixed limits on the tonnage of 'direct-consumption' or refined sugar [2] which may be marketed annually on the mainland from the offshore areas as part of their total sugar quotas. But mainland refiners are not subject to quota limitations upon the marketing of refined sugar.
The Puerto Rican quota for 'direct-consumption' sugar is 126,033 tons. This figure had its genesis in the Jones-Costigan Act of 1934, which provided that the quota for each offshore area was to be the largest amount shipped to the mainland in any one of the three preceding years. ”

“ Nor can we hold that it was baseless for him to decide that increased marketings during the war years may be taken to mean improved ability to market but decreased marketings do not justify the opposite conclusion. ”

“ They charged the Secretary with disregard of the standards which Congress imposed by § 205 (a) for his guidance in making allotment of quotas; they challenged the validity of the Act itself under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Porto Rican American Sugar Refinery, Inc., petitioner in No. 30, the largest of the Puerto Rican refiners, intervened to defend the Secretary's order against the statutory attack. The Government of Puerto Rico, petitioner in No. ”