Intrastate Rates

Federal Regulation of Intrastate Rates (The Shreveport Doctrine)

Although its statutory jurisdiction did not apply to intrastate rate systems, the Commission early asserted the right to pass on rates, which, though in effect on intrastate lines, gave these lines competitive advantages over interstate lines the rates of which the Commission had set. This power the Supreme Court upheld in a case involving a line operating wholly intrastate in Texas but which paralleled within Texas an interstate line operating between Louisiana and Texas; the Texas rate body had fixed the rates of the intrastate line substantially lower than the rate fixed by the ICC on the interstate line. “Wherever the interstate and intrastate transactions of carriers are so related that the government of the one involves the control of the other, it is Congress, and not the State, that is entitled to prescribe the final and dominant rule, for otherwise Congress would be denied the exercise of its constitutional authority and the States and not the Nation, would be supreme in the national field.” 1

More about Intrastate Rates

The same holding was applied in a subsequent case in which the Court upheld the Commission's action in annulling intrastate passenger rates it found to be unduly low in comparison with the rates the Commission had established for interstate travel, thus tending to thwart, in deference to a local interest, the general purpose of the act to maintain an efficient transportation service for the benefit of the country at large.2

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References

This text about Intrastate Rates is based on “The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation”, published by the U.S. Government Printing Office.

[Footnote 1] Houston & Texas Ry. v. United States, 234 U.S. 342, 351-352 (1914). See also, American Express Co. v. Caldwell, 244 U.S. 617 (1917); Pacific Tel. & Tel. Co. v. Tax Comm'n, 297 U.S. 403 (1936); Weiss v. United States, 308 U.S. 321 (1939); Bethlehem Steel Co. v. State Board, 330 U.S. 767 (1947); United States v. Walsh, 331 U.S. 432 (1947).

[Footnote 2] Wisconsin R.R. Comm'n v. Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co., 257 U.S. 563 (1922). Cf. Colorado v. United States, 271 U.S. 153 (1926), upholding an ICC order directing abandonment of an intrastate branch of an interstate railroad. But see North Carolina v. United States, 325 U.S. 507 (1945), setting aside an ICC disallowance of intrastate rates set by a state commission as unsupported by the evidence and findings.

Tables of Contents

• Intrastate Rates and other Topics in the Contents – Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution
• U.S. Constitutional Law Category
• List of amendments to the U.S. Constitution
• Intrastate Rates and other Topics in the Constitution Contents
• Interpretation of the U.S. Constitution (Table of Contents)
• Clauses of the Constitution (Table of Contents)