Page:Department of Public Utilities v. Arkansas Louisiana Gas Co.pdf/16

 order that its contents may be treated, prepared for sale, and sold at retail.

We are of the opinion that gas sold to the pipe line customers, and that diverted through municipal plants in Little Rock and Pine Bluff for use of the Arkansas Power & Light Company, are not transactions in interstate commerce possessing the characteristics necessary to exempt the sales from state regulation.

The record shows that during the first eleven months of 1934, appellee transported into Arkansas from Louisiana and sold and distributed 15,582,012,000 cubic feet of gas, of which only 6,851,396,000 cubic feet were delivered to distribution systems and classified for state regulation. Of the total quantity transported, 8,730,616,000 cubic feet; or more than half shipped into the state, were diverted to a use arbitrarily classed as interstate.

Quantity would not be a criterion for classification if the transactions constituted sales of a commodity continuously in motion from the time it went into the line in Louisiana until delivered to the customer—that is, if the transportation, sale and delivery constituted an unbroken chain from beginning to end. But they do not. In so far as deliveries to the wholesale customers are concerned (excepting gas supplied to the Arkansas Power & Light Company), appellee, for all practical purposes, maintains a distributing system through which it supplies a service similar in effect to that supplied by a local utilities agency.

Gas in large quantities is turned into the transportation system in Louisiana. There are 1,000 miles of these mains in Arkansas. More than fifty per cent. of the gas supplied goes to customers served under individual contracts. An initial force of from 75 to 170 pounds per square inch must be exerted to set in motion and maintain the primary supply. This pressure cannot be exerted in a practical manner at the initial point of entry in Louisiana, and "booster" stations have been built along the route to keep the pressure constant, or high enough to meet delivery specifications. Requirements