Panama Refining Co. et al. v. Ryan et al.

Amazon Petroleum Corporation et al. v. Ryan et al.

Decided on Jan. 7, 1935
C.J. Hughes

Facts:
 6/16/1933: National Industrial Recovery Act section 9 (c) of title 1 provides:

(c) The President is authorized to prohibit the transportation in intersate and

foreign commerce of petroleum and the products thereof produced or withdrawn
from storage in excess of the amount permitted to be produced or withdrawn from
storage by any State Law or valid regulation or prescribed thereunder, by any board,
commission, officer, or other duly authorized agency of a State. Any violation of any
order of the President issued under the provisions of this subsection shall be
punishable by a fine not exceeding $1,000 or imprisonment not to exceed 6 months,
or both.
 7/11/1933: By virtue of the above provision, the President issued EO 6199 imposing said
prohibition.
 7/14/1933: The President issued EO 6204 authorizing the Secretary of the Interior to
exercise all the powers vested in the President for the purpose of enforcing section 9 (c) of
said Act and above EO including full authority to designate and appoint such agents and set
up such boards and agencies as he may see fit, and to promulgate such rules and regulations
as he may deem necessary. EO was issued under section 10 (a) of said Act authorizing the
President to prescribe such rules and regulations as may be necessary to carry out the
purposes of title 1 of said Act.
 7/15/1933: Secretary of Interior issued regulations to carry out the President’s EOs.
 8/19/1933: The President approved a Code of Fair Competition for the Petroleum Industry
through an EO stating that such action was taken under title 1 of the Act
 Panama Refining Co., owner of an oil refining plant in Texas, and Amazon Petroleum Corp, oil
producers in Texas and owning separate properties, sued separately attacking the validity of
section 9 (c) and the subsequent EOs as an unconstitutional delegation to the President of
legislative power.

Issue: W/N section 9 (c) of the National Industrial Recovery Act is unconstitutional for being an
invalid delegation of legislative power. YES

Ratio:
.
The Constitution provides that ‘All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the
United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.’ Article 1, s 1. And the
Congress is empowered ‘To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into
Execution’ its general powers. Article 1, s 8, par. 18. The Congress manifestly is not permitted to abdicate
or to transfer to others the essential legislative functions with which it is thus vested.

However, the Constitution has never been regarded as denying to the Congress the necessary resources of
flexibility and practicality, which will enable it to perform its function in laying down policies and
establishing standards, while leaving to selected instrumentalities the making of subordinate rules within
prescribed limits and the determination of facts to which the policy as declared by the Legislature is to
apply. But the constant recognition of the necessity and validity of such provisions and the wide range of
administrative authority which has been developed cannot be allowed to obscure the limitations of the
authority to delegate, if the constitutional system is to be maintained.

The Court made the distinction between ‘the delegation of power to make the law, which necessarily
involves a discretion as to what it shall be, and conferring authority or discretion as to its execution, to be
exercised under and in pursuance of the law.’
Authorizations given by Congress to selected instrumentalities for the purpose of ascertaining the existence
of facts to which legislation is directed have constantly been sustained. Moreover the Congress may not
only give such authorizations to determine specific facts, but may establish primary standards, devolving
upon others the duty to carry out the declared legislative policy; that is, as Chief Justice Marshall expressed
it, ‘to fill up the details' under the general provisions made by the Legislature.

So also, from the beginning of the government, the Congress has conferred upon executive officers the
power to make regulations—‘not for the government of their departments, but for administering the laws
which did govern.’ Such regulations become binding rules of conduct but they are valid only as subordinate
rules and when found to be within the framework of the policy which the Legislature has sufficiently
defined.

The Court held that section 9(c) goes beyond those limits. As to the transportation of oil production in
excess of state permission, the Congress has declared no policy, has established no standard, has laid down
no rule. There is no requirement, no definition of circumstances and conditions in which the transportation
is to be allowed or prohibited. If section 9(c) were held valid, it would be idle to pretend that anything
would be left of limitations upon the power of the Congress to delegate its lawmaking function.
Instead of performing its lawmaking function, the Congress could at will and as to such subjects as it
chooses transfer that function to the President or other officer or to an administrative body.

Court’s findings: 9 (c) does not qualify the President's authority by reference to the basis or extent of the
State's limitation of production. Section 9(c) does not state whether or in what circumstances or under what
conditions the President is to prohibit the transportation of the amount of petroleum or petroleum products
produced in excess of the state's permission. It establishes no creterion to govern the President's course. It
does not require any finding by the President as a condition of his action. The Congress in section 9(c) thus
declares no policy as to the transportation of the excess production. So far as this section is concerned, it
gives to the President an unlimited authority to determine the policy and to lay down the prohibition, or not
to lay it down, as he may see fit. And disobedience to his order is made a crime punishable by fine and
imprisonment.

Another objection to the validity of the said section and subsequent EOs is that the executive order contains
no finding, no statement of the grounds of the President's action in enacting the prohibition. Both section
9(c) and the executive order are in notable contrast with historic practice by which declarations of policy
are made by the Congress and delegations are within the framework of that policy and have relation to facts
and conditions to be found and stated by the President in the appropriate exercise of the delegated
authority. If it could be said that from the four corners of the statute any possible inference could be drawn
of particular circumstances or conditions which were to govern the exercise of the authority conferred, the
President could not act validly without having regard to those circumstances and conditions. And findings
by him as to the existence of the required basis of his action would be necessary to sustain that action, for
otherwise the case would still be one of an unfettered discretion as the qualification of authority would be
ineffectual.

Due process of law requires that it shall appear that the order is within the authority of the officer, board, or
commission, and, if that authority depends on determinations of fact, those determinations must be shown.