“ Each state uses large amounts of the gas in her several institutions and schools-the greater part in the discharge of duties which are relatively imperative. A break or cessation in the supply will embarrass her greatly in the discharge of those duties and expose thousands of dependents and school children to serous discomfort, if not more. To substitute another form of fuel will involve very large public expenditures.
The private consumers in each state not only include most of the inhabitants of many urban communities but constitute a substantial portion of the state's population. ”

“ Thus, the estimate of the undeveloped gas territory must be ever changing; for new discovery may open territory theretogore unknown, and the sinking of test wells may establish the act that territory previously deemed valuable will be wholly unproductive. In no other field of public service regulation is the controlling body confronted with factors so baffling as in the natural gas industry, and in none is continuous supervision and control required in so high a degree. ”

“ Should distributing companies in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana be permitted to extend their mains or add new customers after West Virginia had recognized the insufficiency of the supply to satisfy the needs of consumers within the state? And what shall be deemed the existing demand of a state? Is existing demand to be limited to customers already connected? ”

“ Of course, in the last analysis, the question is whether the enforced withdrawal for the bene fit of local consumers is such an interference with interstate commerce as is forbidden to a state by the Constitution. The question is an important one; for what one state may do others may, and there are 10 states from which natural gas is exported for consumption in other states. Besides, what may be done with one natural product may be done with others, and there are several states in which the earth yields products of great value which are carried into other states and there used. ”

“ It is true that the business is of a quasi public character, but it is so in Pennsylvania and Ohio as well as in West Virginia. The obligations inhering in it and the power to insist on an adequate service are the same in all three states. The supply of gas necessarily marks the extent of the service that can be rendered. Much of the business is interstate and has grown up through a course of years. West Virginia encouraged and sanctioned the development of that part of the business and has profited greatly by it. ”

“ But increased population, enlarged industry-particularly in West Virginia-and the advantages inhering in the gas as a fuel have finally resulted in a gross demand, which cannot be satisfied even in the summer months. The present actual consumption is all that the production will sustain. The pipe line companies cannot supply more gas in West Virginia without cutting down what they carry into Pennsylvania and Ohio; nor can they carry more into Pennsylvania and Ohio without cutting down what they supply in West Virginia. ”

“ We turn now to the principal issue, whether a state wherein natural gas is produced and is a recognized subject of commercial dealings may require that in its sale and disposal consumers in that state shall be accorded a preferred right of purchase over consumers in other states-when the requirement necessarily will operate to withdraw a large volume of the gas from an established interstate current whereby it is supplied in other states to consumers there. ”

“ Pro rata distribution among all users of the gas from time to time available would obviously not result in equitable distribution; for domestic users, and also many industrial ones, would, if their gas supply were uncertain, find it necessary to assure themselves of an adequate supply for heating, cooking, and power, of either oil or some other kind of fuel, and the expense of producing the necessary alternative appliances would be large. ”

“ Whether the West Virginia corporations may furnish gas to the plaintiff states and whether those corporations may be regulated as the statute attempts, are at most controversies between West Virginia and those corporations. They have not submitted their rights to adjudication in these suits. It is intimated that these corporations wish to have the act declared void. But we may not assume that such is their wish. Conceivably a decision holding the act valid might benefit them; since it might relieve them from improvident contracts with distributing companies in Pennsylvania and Ohio. ”

“ Before there can be, in a legal sense, danger that restriction will result, it must appear that one or more of the 12 exporting companies is disabling itself by such exportation, or is about to do so, and also that some state official is about to take effective action to prevent the exportation. But under the legislation of West Virginia many things would have to happen and much time must elapse before any of the exporting corporations would be under any legal duty to discontinue or essen their exports, and still more time before it could actually be prevented from exporting gas. ”

“ Natural gas is a lawful article of commerce, and its transmission from one state to another for sale and consumption in the latter is interstate commerce. A state law, whether of the state where the gas is produced or that where it is to be sold, which by its necessary operation prevents, obstructs or burdens such transmission is a regulation of interstate commerce-a prohibited interference. ”

“ It is objected that the pipe line companies have not been brought in. But there is nothing which makes their presence essential. The complainant states make no complaint and seek no relief against them. They are supplying gas in those states, and evidently will continue to do so, if not restrained or prevented by the defendant state. It is only with her that the complainant states are in controversy. It also is objected that the consumers in the defendant state who will be benefited if the act is enforced have no representation in the suits. ”

“ West Virginia consumers insisted that the common law forbade its public service companies to so disable themselves from performaning their duty to give adequate service within the state, and contended that the exporting public service corporations which habitually supplied the local distributing companies could not justify furnishing a reduced supply by setting up their contracts to furnish supplies to concerns in other states. ”

“ It is the fuel with which food is cooked and water heated for thousands of dependents in charitable and penal institutions, with which hundreds of schoolhouses are heated and made comfortable for thousands of children, and with which municipal waterworks are operated in several cities, notably Cincinnati and Toledo. The heating and other appliances have been adjusted to its use, and to make the changes incident to substituting other fuel would involve an expenditure in each state of a very large sum of public money. ”

“ The predominant use is for fuel purposes; that for lighting being relatively small. All gas going into Pennsylvania and Ohio is carried and supplied under prior engagements respecting its disposal-most of it under long time contracts exacted or preferred by the purchasers or consumers.
Experience in other gas fields has shown that multiplied and prolonged drafts on the natural supply will exhaust it. Since 1916 it has been apparent that the older portions of the West Virginia fields are approaching exhaustion and that produc ion in those fields has reached and passed its maximum. ”

“ Natural gas is found at pronounced depths in porous strata usually sand rock-constituting a natural reservoir, and is brought to the surface and reduced to possession through wells drilled into the containing strata. When a surface owner thus reduces it to possession he becomes its owner, and it becomes a subject of commerce, like any product of the forest, field, or mine. In the inclosing strata it is under great pressure, called rock pressure, which causes it to flow out rapidly when the strata are penetrated. ”

“ Latterly during the colder months-from November 1 to May 1 the combined needs of domestic and industrial consumers have been largely in excess of the production, and the pipe line companies generally have adopted and are pursuing the policy of preferring domestic consumers during those months. All the long-time contracts contain provisions admitting of such a preference. During other months, when there is little occasion for heating homes and offices, the needs of domestic consumers drop so materially that much gas may be and is supplied for industrial use without affecting the domestic use. ”

“ If it is claimed that there is failure to give adequate service, a petition may be filed before the commission to secure it. After notice to and hearing of the corporation by the commission an order may be made. Until the commission issues some order which purports to restrict in some way the discretion theretofore exercised by a corporation in respect to exports, every such concern is, under the act of 1919, legally as free to continue the transportation of gas to Pennsylvania and to Ohio as if that statute had not been passed. ”

“ For Pennsylvania and Ohio Communities formerly supplied from local production of natural gas could, if this is no longer possible, afford to pay a vary high price for gas rather than to discard existing gas appliances and to install new ones which would be required if oil or coal were to be substituted as fuel. In 1921 the average price per M cubic feet for domestic consumption was 26 cents in West Virginia, 44 cents in Pennsylvania, and 42 cents in Ohio. ”

“ In Pennsylvania the gas is used by 300,000 domestic consumers caring for 1,500,000 people, and in Ohio by 725,000 domestic consumers caring for 3,625,000 people. This is where no other natural gas service is available. To change to other fuel would require an adjustment of heating and cooking appliances at an average cost of more than $100 for each domestic consumer, or an aggregate cost exceeding $30,000,000 in Pennsylvania nd $72,500,000 in Ohio. ”

“ The companies supplied 70 billion to consumers in the state and carried 157 billion to consumers outside. They also brought 4 billion into the state from gas fields outside and to that extent enlarged the amount supplied to local consumers. Of that amount, 21 billion went into domestic use and 53 billion into industrial use. The major part of the gas carried into Pennsylvania went to industrial consumers, and the major part of that carried into Ohio went to domestic consumers. ”

“ Each sues to protect a twofold interest-one as the proprietor of various public institutions and schools whose supply of gas will be largely curtailed or cut off by the threatened interference with the interstate current, and the other as the representative of the consuming public whose supply will be similarly affected. ”

“ If one surface owner drills wells and begins to draw off the gas, others desiring to exercise their common right must take the same course, for otherwise the g § under their lands may be drained out by those wells. After the gas is drawn from the inclosing strata there is no practicable mode of storing and holding it. ”

“ They are represented by that state, and there is nothing in the situation requiring that they be specially represented or brought in. With equal basis it could be objected in a suit to prevent the enforcement of a statute reducing railroad freight rates, or in one to prevent the enforcement of a municipal ordinance reducing telephone or electric light rates, that shippers or users who would be benefited by the reduction must be specially represented or brought in. ”

“ In this situation the appropriate decree is one declaring the act invalid and enjoining its enforcement. To dismiss the bills and leave the act to be enforced would be quite inadmissible. If there be need for regulating the interstate commerce involved, the regulation should be sought from the body in whom the power resides.
Decrees for complainants. ”

“ Or it may be that some of the 12 corporations would be benefited and others injured by any decision made of the question presented. Unless the 12 corporations are legally represented either by the plaintiff or the defendant, they would not be bound by a decree in either of these suits. ”

“ But this she may not do. A direction to one of her railroads when short of facilities for moving coal to haul intrastate coal to the exclusion of interstate coal would not be different in kind or force. ”

“ Even th ir power to lay and collect taxes, comprehensive and necessary as that power is, cannot be exerted in a way which involves a discrimination against such commerce. Ward v. Maryland, 12 Wall. 418, 430, 20 L. Ed. ”