Power company

“ FERC-regulated electric power companies that are subsidiaries or affiliates of registered public utility holding companies are therefore subject to SEC regulation as well. Respondent Ohio Power Company, part of the American Electric Power system (AEP) , is one such company; petitioners are 15 small Ohio villages and cities that are AEP's wholesale customers. ”

“ Appellant is one of seven affiliated public utility corporations organized under the laws of Indiana, more than 99 per cent. of the combined capital stock and securities of which is owned by the Central Indiana Power Company. The officers and directors of the several corporations are the same, and the operations of the entire group are under a common control, so that, in substance, the business of all is carried on as though they constituted a single entity. Their lines are interconnected, and the electrical energy distributed by them is drawn from common sources. ”

“ Electric equipment is usually supplied by one of a few great equipment concerns and frequently paid for, at least in part, in the securities of the proposed project. Thus the equipment company acquires interests in widely separated power and light concerns.
Take a single example, the General Electric Company, the most powerful electric equipment concern in the world. Men who are officers or directors of the General Electric Company, or of its three wholly controlled subsidiary companies, are also officers or directors in many other corporations. ”

“ Where it is delivered through a single meter at one location, energy utilized to operate sewing machines for a minor manufacturing unit, e.g., shirts, in a department store, would be deemed power sold for commercial consumption, although it might fall within the industrial category if sold to a consumer who did nothing but manufacture shirts. ”

“ The legislativ history indicates that the term 'commercial' was meant to apply to the nature of the business in which the energy is consumed, and not to the specific purpose to which each measurable unit of electricity is devoted. ”

“ The corporation is not permitted to traffic in machinery for manufacturing or conveying the gas into private houses, their capital or joint stock is limited to £200,000, and his Majesty has the power of declaring the gas-light charter void if the company fail to fulfil the terms of it. ”

“ Distribution of Power's common stock holdings in Railways was to be effected on the basis of 5 shares of Railways' common stock for one share of Power's preferred and one share of Railways' common for 20 shares of Power's common, an allocation of 94.52% To Power's preferred stockholders and 5.48% To Power's common stockholders. ”

“ On its face, the Act discloses purpose to authorize a large and indeterminate number of great works for the primary purpose of creating a vast supply of electric power, to use this power to establish the United States in the business of producing, transmitting, and selling electric power, and to dispose of this power in a manner inconsistent with the principles of our dual system and so as to govern the concerns reserved to the States. ”

“ The company shall not supply electricity for lighting purposes except to authorized undertakers, provided that the energy supplied to any person for power may be used for lighting any premises on which the power is utilized. The company shall not supply energy (except to authorized undertakers) in any area which forms part of the area of supply of any authorized distributors without their consent, such consent not to be unreasonably withheld. ”

“ Nor is there any doubt today that projects generating energy for such transmission, such as Taum Sauk, affect commerce among the States and therefore are within the purview of the commerce power, quite without regard to the federal control of tributary streams and navigation. ”

“ Only yesterday, I went through the great plant at Gary, and I found the United States Steel Corporation was using two million horse-power developed from gases from its own operations, which only a few years ago was allowed to go to waste, and that power is not only operating all the machinery of that company, but is supplying the power for other industries in the immediate vicinity. ”

“ To focus the inquiry, it is well to state what is not involved in this case. There is no question that the interstate transmission of electric energy is fully subject to the commerce powers of Congress. ”

“ Petitioner and respondent are public electric utilities companies engaged in interstate commerce. Petitioner's predecessor and respondent were under the same management through interlocking directorships and joint officers. During that relationship the two interchanged electric energy, shared expenses, and made a number of intercompany contracts establishing rates and charges, which contracts were filed with and accepted by the Federal Power Commissoin. ”

“ A 'wholesale' transaction is defined to mean the sale of electric energy for resale and the Commission is given no jurisdiction over local rates even where the electric energy moves in interstate commerce. ”

“ As Railways was the only company in the tier below Power of the holding company system, it would become by the dissolution of Power the top holding company and Power's preferred and common stockholders, by the distribution to them of all of Railways' common, would have in the aggregate the same rights in Railways and in the holding company system that Power had. ”

“ They affirm that the statutory plan is a plain attempt, in the guise of exerting granted powers, to exercise a power not granted to the United States, namely, the generation and sale of electric energy ”

“ As an illustration they cite the provisions of section 201 (a) as they appeared in a predecessor bill. [11] We do not think that the result which the petitioners apprehend follows from our interpretation. The language of section 201 (a) and (b) indicates a distinction between the facilities for generation or production and those for transmission. Also, it is sales at wholesale only which are regulated and, finally, Commission power does not extend over all connecting transmitting facilities but only over those which transmit energy actually moving in interstate commerce. ”

“ We are in no way warranted in assuming that the sale of surplus power, if there is any, is the real object of the enterprise, or anything more than a possible incident, necessary to prevent waste, of the primary public use. ”

“ But the Company contended, notwithstanding its status as a public utility, that it was carried out of that particular federal regulation by the fact that the state regulated its security issues. We held that state regulation does not operate to exempt from the security provisions a company otherwise subject to the Commission's jurisdiction but that 'The sounder conclusion, it seems to us, is that this limitation is directed at generation, transmission and sale rather than the corporate financial arrangements of the utilities engaged in such production and distribution.' Id. ”

“ This bill came before Congress as prepared by the staff of the Commission, couched largely in the technical language of the electric art. Federal jurisdiction was to follow the flow of electric energy, an engineering and scientific, rather than a legalistic or governmental test. Technology of the business is such that if any part of a supply of electric energy comes from outside of a state it is, or may be present in every connected distribution facility. Every facility from generator to the appliance for consumption may thus be called one for transmitting such interstate power. ”

“ The company, needing electric power for its own use, has developed a system deriving its power from a point about thirty miles from the city, where a small stream plunges down the sea coast from the mountain range that runs along it. ”

“ Qualified issuer.—The term `qualified issuer' means a public power provider, a cooperative electric company, a governmental body, a clean renewable energy bond lender, or a not-for-profit electric utility which has received a loan or loan guarantee under the Rural Electrification Act.''. ”

“ One might say, we suppose, that a FERC rate requirement is imposed "with respect to the disposition" of electric power-though it does some violence to the interpretive rule of ejusdem generis to say that electric power qualifies as an "other subject matter" at the end of a list that includes securities, capital assets, and facilities, see, e.g., Harrison v. ”

“ It entrusted the administration of the FPA to the FPC and later FERC as the agency with the proper technical expertise required to regulate energy transmission. One of the FPA's principal goals is to ensure that the rates customers pay for their electricity are "just and reasonable." ”

“ Power Reactor Development Company v. International Union of Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers
Argued: April 26, 27, 1961. --- Decided: June 12, 1961
Mr. Justice DOUGLAS, with whom Mr. Justice BLACK concurs, dissenting. ”

“ Thus they will shortly be in complete control of the hydro-electric and superpower field in America and controlling the power they will control every phase of modern civilization. For electricity is the power of the future. For the home, for industry, transportation, mining and for agriculture—electricity from now on is the one absolute essential. He who controls the power controls all.
Hence the commanding need for public ownership in this larger field. ”

“ In the United States a co-operative electrical development association canvasses both the general public and the electricity supply undertakers. Funds are provided by the manufacturing companies acting in concert with the supply authorities and contractors, and the spirit underlying the work is to advertise the merits of electricity—not any particular company or interest. Their efforts are directed to securing new consumers and stimulating the increased and more varied use of electricity among actual consumers. ”

“ The nature of the electric utilities industry is such that about 90 per cent of all power generation and distribution is intrastate in character, and most of the States have developed their own regulatory systems as to certificates of convenience, rates, and profits of such utilities. ”

“ As was the situation in the Electric Bond & Share Co. case, North American is clearly engaged in activities which bring it within the ambit of congressional authority. North American is a typical utility holding company. It is the pinnacle of a great pyramid of corporations, the majority of which operate electric and gas utility properties. These properties are scattered throughout the United States, many of them serving large cities and contiguous territories. [3] Electric energy is transmitted across state lines by numerous companies in the pyramid or system. ”

“ The Labour Party demands that the production of electricity on the necessary gigantic scale shall be made, from the start (with suitable arrangements for municipal co-operation in local distribution) , a national enterprise, to be worked exclusively with the object of supplying the whole kingdom with the cheapest possible power, light and heat. ”

“ By generating on a large scale for a wide variety of demands the promoters of the new scheme calculated to be able to offer electrical energy in bulk to electricity supply companies and local authorities at prices substantially below their costs of production at separate stations, and also to provide them and power users with electricity at rates which would compete with other forms of power. ”

“ What I want to say is this: we've got our power plant, and our wire transmitter system, and we're making money on that, as everybody knows. We can pay dividends on the old way of transmitting power, developing the 'juice' by water power and peddling it out by wire. We can pay ten per cent., and a stock dividend every year, for we are earning nineteen and eight-tenths per cent. ”

“ When we reflect that within a few decades of the discovery of electric power, every city, large and small, had its street-car and electric-light service, and that most of these cities, through their councils, gave away these monopoly rights for long periods of time, we can imagine the princely aggregate of the gifts which public service corporations have received at the hands of our municipal governments, and the nature of the temptations these corporations were able to spread before the greedy gaze of those whose gesture would seal the grant. ”

“ No review of the decade's progress of electricity supply would be complete without reference to the great expansion of syndicate operation and management. Through the control by one company, usually known as a holding company, of numerous properties, a great saving was made. Central organizations have applied to small properties better engineering and management than they otherwise could have had. This also resulted in the discontinuance of small uneconomical plants and the substitution of large unified systems supplying many communities. ”

“ The best-known example of the development and transmission of electrical energy for industrial purposes is the case of Niagara Falls, but more striking illustrations may be found on the Pacific coast, while the existence of enormous opportunities on the Atlantic seaboard give brilliant promise for the future of manufacturing in this region. So valuable indeed are these sources of power now seen to be that there is danger that their control may be monopolized by a few shrewd and far-sighted individuals before the general public awakes to a realization of their importance. ”