Charles West v. Kansas Natural Gas Company
| Decision Date | 15 May 1911 |
| Docket Number | No. 916,916 |
| Citation | 55 L.Ed. 716,31 S.Ct. 564,221 U.S. 229 |
| Parties | CHARLES WEST, Attorney General of the State of Oklahoma, Appt., v. KANSAS NATURAL GAS COMPANY, the Marnet Mining Company, and A. W. Lewis |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs. Charles B. Ames and Charles West for appellant.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 230-234 intentionally omitted] Messrs. D. T. Watson, John G. Johnson, John J. Jones, and E. L. Scarritt for appellees.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 234-239 intentionally omitted]
This appeal brings up for review the decree entered in the circuit court of the United States for the eastern district of Oklahoma in four suits consolidated by stipulation of the parties.
The suits had the common purpose of attacking the constitutional validity of a statute of Oklahoma, enacted in 1907, which is referred to as chapter 67 of the Session Laws of 1907. It is inserted in the margin in full.1 All
1 Chapter 67. Pipe Lines—Regulating Gas and Oil Pipe Lines. Article. 1.
An Act Regulating the Laying, Constructing, and Maintaining and Operation of Gas Pipe Lines for the Transportation of Natural Gas within the State of Oklahoma, Defining the Modes of Procedure for the Exercise of the Right of Eminent Domain for Such Purposes, Providing for the Inspection and Supervision of the Laying of Such Pipe Lines, and Limiting the Gas Pressure Therein, and Providing Penalties for the Violation Thereof.
of the bills have the same foundation; that is, the right to buy, sell, and transport natural gas in interstate commerce notwithstanding the provision of the statute.
The suits were numbered in the court below 856, 857,
858, and 859. In 856 the Kansas Natural Gas Company was complainant. It is a corporation of the state of Delaware, and is engaged in the business of purchasing and distributing natural gas to consumers. It has a contract
for the purchase of all the gas that can be produced from a certain well in Washington county, Oklahoma, and has acquired by purchase the right of way over the land upon which the well is located for the laying of a pipe line for the transportation of the gas, and proposes to extend its trunk pipe lines from the present southern terminus thereof in the state of Kansas, southward across the Oklahoma state line to the well. It also proposes to construct lateral and branch lines from the trunk line so extended, for the purpose of gathering and receiving such gas as it may be able to purchase from the owners of other wells. Its line will not be used in any way for local traffic, but only for the transportation of the gas from the wells in Oklahoma into the states of Kansas and Missouri.
In No. 857, the Marnet Mining Company, a corporation of West Virginia, is complainant. For the purpose of transporting from the producers of gas in the state of Oklahoma to purchasers and consumers in Kansas and Missouri, it has purchased a right of way over certain lands in the state, and proposes to construct a system of pipe lines to be used exclusively in such interstate transportation, and not in any way for local traffic.
In No. 858, A. W. Lewis, a citizen and resident of the state of Ohio, is complainant. He is the owner of an oil and gas lease by which he has acquired the right to construct wells on a certain tract of land in Oklahoma, and to take gas therefrom for the period of fifteen years. He has constructed a well, in accordance with his lease, which
is capable of producing many millions of cubic feet of gas per day, which, being in excess of the local demand, he is unable to sell in the state; and he alleges that, being prevented from transporting it from the state, he has suffered great loss and damage, and is deprived of his property without compensation.
In No. 859, O. A. Bleakley, a citizen and resident of Pennsylvania, is complainant. He has received from the Secretary of the Interior a right of way over the land of certain Indians over a designated route, paying to the Indian agent, by law and the rules and regulations of the Interior Department, the value of such right of way and the damages which the owners of the land over which he will pass for the laying and maintaining of a pipe line for the exclusive purpose of transporting natural gas from Oklahoma to Kansas.
It is alleged in the bills that a great number of wells have been drilled in the state at great expense, which are capable of producing more than 1,000,000,000 cubic feet of gas per day; that such amount is more than necessary for the demands of the people of the state, and the excess of supply is required to meet the wants of those residing in Missouri and Kansas. This want, it is alleged, may be supplied through the distributing plants now constructed and those contemplated by complainants, but that under the present conditions the owners are required to cease development work, and to keep large and valuable wells capped and inoperative, to their great injury and damage. It is alleged that in constructing lines for such transportation it will not be necessary to go along the highways of the state, but only across or over them; and that the lines to be constructed will be private lines, will endanger the lives and property of no one, and will be constructed in just conformity with all reasonable rules and regulations of the state.
It is averred that each of the defendants is charged, by
virtue of his office, to execute the laws and Constitution of the state, and that he has undertaken to enforce the act hereinbefore referred to by proceedings in courts and by force of arms, and it is his intent and avowed purpose to prevent the transportation of gas beyond the limits of the state. The particular acts are set forth.
The bills pray discovery, that the act above referred to be declared void as being in conflict with § 8, article 1, and the 14th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, and that the defendants be enjoined from the things attributed to them. General relief is also prayed.
Demurrers were filed to the bills, which were overruled (172 Fed. 545), and the defendants answered.
It was subsequently stipulated that the causes be consolidated and that appellant file an amended answer in each of the cases, and the answers of the other defendants be withdrawn. It will only be necessary to consider the amended answer, not, however, its details either of denial or averment, but only of certain facts especially relied on. These are: The present daily capacity of the gas wells of the state is approximately 1 1/4 billion cubic feet, the daily consumption being more than can be safely taken from them 'without rapidly destroying their efficiency and depleting this great natural resource of the state.' The gas area of the state is found in oil-producing sand, and the experience of all other natural gas fields demonstrates that the gas found in and taken from such sand is of much shorter duration than that found in purely gas sand, and if the acts of complainants be permitted 'the field will be exhausted in a very short time.' While it is true that the gas in Oklahoma is found in a gas and oil-producing sand which extends underneath large contiguous areas of land, every well takes from this unbroken area and diminishes the producing capacity of every other well and of the entire field, the acts of the complainants, if permitted,
will greatly damage and injury the entire field and take the property of all other owners therein, and 'that the act of the legislature of the state of Oklahoma, alleged in the bill to be unconstitutional, was an effort on the part of the legislature of the state to preserve the natural gas field of the state from destructive waste.'
Certain cities of the states, which, by reason of their proximity to the gas field, should be supplied with gas, are not now supplied with it, and will never be if complainants are allowed to transport it from Oklahoma without regulation by laws of the state, and the population of the state is now 1,750,000, and is growing more rapidly than that of any other state in the Union. On account of the general prairie character of the state, it is without domestic fuel except coal and natural gas. Its supply of coal is growing rapidly more costly to produce, that the petroleum oil produced is practically transported from the state, 'and that, substantially, the only natural, practical, usable fuel, both for domestic and industrial use, is natural gas.'
The complainants may and are actually in the process of erecting enormous pumping stations outside of the state, which 'might reasonably and would inevitably render entirely useless all the present lines (gas) in Oklahoma, and take away from the cities and towns of Oklahoma the entire practical use of their sole and natural fuel, because when gas is removed by the limited, prudent, and natural rock pressure, the nature and formation of the gas and oil sand is not radically changed, but if large pumps to pump out the wells, out of proportion to the rock pressure, are used, as are now actually threatened, by the complainant, the gas and oil sand is actually broken down as though shot with dynamite and other violence, and the salt water thereunder, always to be found, at once drowns out the wells, where rock pressure has been too greatly or rapidly decreased; that the use of the highways is a portion of the
public property, and the same should be confined to those who supply all alike who may seek to be served; and because of its nature and extent, and because the enormous amount of capital needed to make practical investments tends to create monopolies. The business of gas transportation is a public business in interstate trade, over which Congress has never legislated, and to permit complainant to carry out its said attempt and intent to monopolize the natural gas of ...
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