• U.S.

JUDICIARY: Anti-New Deal No. 1

2 minute read
TIME

Last week the U. S. Supreme Court rendered its first major decision against President Roosevelt. The case was a significant test of the New Deal’s extraordinary powers procured from Congress in the name of Emergency and Recovery. A group of Texas oil companies were contesting against Presidential orders, issued under section 9c of the National Industrial Recovery Act prohibiting the interstate shipment of “hot oil.” With only Justice Cardozo dissenting, Chief Justice Hughes read the court’s opinion:

“In every case in which the question has been raised, the Court has recognized that there are limits of delegation [of power by Congress] which there is no Constitutional authority to transcend. We think that Section 9c goes beyond those limits. … It is no answer to say that the transportation of ‘hot oil’ is injurious.

… If the Congress can make a grant of authority to the President, we can find nothing that would prevent it from making it to any other authority it wishes. . . . The Congress has no power to abdicate its functions. . . . Section 9c is untenable under the Constitution. . . . The question is not the intrinsic importance of the subject matter, but the Constitutional processes of legislation which are essential functions of our form of government.”

Quick was Oil Administrator Ickes to point out that this decision invalidated only one small section of the Recovery Act, authorizing the President to forbid shipments of “hot oil” in interstate commerce. It did not invalidate NRA codes, or even the Petroleum Code. Secretary Ickes prepared at once to shift his efforts to control production by using the oil code as his tool. He added however: “I imagine the code’s constitutionality will be tested next.”

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