Interstate Commerce Commission

1. Indian Claims Commission
2. International Chamber of Commerce
3. Interstate Commerce Commission

For more information on Interstate Commerce Commission, visit Britannica.com.

Federal agency created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 to insure that the public receives fair and reasonable rates and services from carriers and transportation service firms involved in interstate commerce. Legislation enacted in the 1970s and 80s substantially curtailed the regulatory activities of the ICC, particularly in the rail, truck, and bus industries.

The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 created the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), the U.S. government's first regulatory agency. The initial purpose of the ICC was to control railroads and their unfair business practices. The U.S. government had to become a regulator because in 1886 the Supreme Court had ruled in the case of Wabash Railroad v. Illinois that states could not control interstate commerce.

Railroads presented some special problems because they were capital-intensive, had high maintenance costs, and had two types of rail lines. This led to unfair pricing practices. For major trunk lines, where there was competition, the railroads charged lower rates and even gave rebates. For spur lines, where there was a monopoly, the railroad charged higher rates for the same type of cargo.

Even with the federal government taking charge of regulating railroads, the Interstate Commerce Commission still got off to a rocky start. In its first sixteen court actions, the ICC only won one case; and the Supreme Court had several judgments against the ICC which limited its power. However, later legislation gave the ICC rulings more power. The Elkins Act of 1903 was aimed at unfair competitive methods, and the Hepburn Act of 1906 eliminated the necessity of a court order to make ICC rulings binding and gave the ICC control of gas and water pipelines.

The Motor Carrier Act of 1935 placed the emerging trucking industry under ICC jurisdiction. Typical ICC duties included holding hearings to investigate complaints, approving transportation mergers, and overseeing consumer-protection programs.

By the 1960s, the ICC had grown into a massive bureaucracy, peaking at 2400 employees. Shortly thereafter, the agency came under severe criticism. Some groups argued that, because of regulation, the country's transportation was inefficient and perhaps corrupt. The major criticism—that regulation created artificially high rates—led to pressure for deregulation and signaled the beginning of the demise of the ICC. First, the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act of 1976 curtailed the ICC power to regulate rates unless the railroad had a monopoly on certain routes. In 1977, air cargo deregulation and the reforms taking place in the trucking industry further eroded the power of the ICC. After the early rocky years of deregulation, the transportation industry had become more efficient thanks to innovative technology, thereby reducing costs. The final act of deregulation came in 1994, when the ICC lost most of its control over the trucking industry.

By this time, the ICC had dropped from a high of 2400 employees to 300 and was constrained by a severely reduced budget. The Republicans, who had wanted to eliminate the ICC for a number of years, took control of Congress in 1995. As a first step, the fiscal 1996 spending bill (HR2002-FL 104-50) gave the ICC no budget. Then the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee approved HR2539, and the debate began. The major objection from the Democratic side was centered on protection for railroad workers who might lose their jobs because of mergers. After ironing out their differences, Congress sent President Clinton legislation to terminate the ICC (HR2539-PL 104-88). On December 29, 1995, the 108-year-old Interstate Commerce Commission was disbanded.

Bibliography

"End of the Line for ICC." Nation's Business 84(3) (March 1996): 32.

"ICC Elimination." (1995—1996). Congress and the Nation 9:381-383.

"Interstate Commerce Commission." Archived at: http://www.federalregister.com. 1999.

"Interstate Commerce Commission." West's Encyclopedia of American Law. (Vol 6, 1998, 209-210). St. Paul, MN.

"President Signs Bill Terminating ICC." (1996). Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report 54(1) (6 January 1996):58.

"R.I.P., ICC." (1996). American Heritage. 47(3) (May/June):22.

"Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents." Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report (1996). 32:1 (8 January):1.

[Article by: MARY JEAN LUSH; VAL HINTON]

On 31 December 1995, after 108 years of operation, the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) closed its doors in compliance with the ICC Termination Act of 1995 (P.L.104-88).This archetypal American independent regulatory commission, once feared by the transportation industry, saw the functions it still performed diminish until, at the end, they were assumed by offices in the Federal Highway Administration and the newly-created Surface Transportation Board, both elements of the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Those with the greatest stake in the ICC, which was created in 1887, were midwestern farmers and the owners and operators of the newly emergent railroad transportation systems. The railroads opened midwestern markets to those in the East, but charged what the market would bear, which was significantly less between two cities connected by more than one carrier than between towns that did not have the benefit of such competition. "Long haul" rates were more beneficial than "short haul" rates, leading farmers and merchants (members of the Grange) to redress their grievances through politics.

This post–Civil War reform movement helped initiate state regulation of railroads and grain elevators. In 1877 the Supreme Court, in Munn v. Illinois, ruled that the states could indeed regulate those properties vested with a public interest. However, in 1886 the Court reversed itself in Wabash, St. Louis and Pacific Railway v. Illinois, saying that only Congress could regulate interstate commerce. In 1887 Congress passed an Act to Regulate Commerce, known thereafter as the Interstate Commerce Act, which President Grover Cleveland signed into law on 4 February 1887. The law established a five-person commission to be appointed by the president and con-firmed by the Senate.

From its inception until the end of the century, the ICC, seeking to negotiate "reasonable and just" rates, was hobbled by the vagueness of its enabling act, the failure of Congress to give it enforcement power, and the Supreme Court's strict interpretation of the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, which emasculated the commission's power. During its first eighteen years, the ICC brought sixteen cases before the Court, fifteen of which were decided in favor of the railroads.

Nevertheless, the ICC would become the model for effective regulation later on. Responding to President Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive movement, Congress passed the Hepburn Act (1906) and the Mann-Elkins Act (1910), which gave the commission wider authority to set aside rates charged by railroads, set profit levels, and organize mergers. The Hepburn Act extended the ICC's jurisdiction to include sleeping car companies, oil pipelines, ferries, terminals, and bridges. Through a broader interpretation of the Commerce Clause, the Court accepted a more muscular role for the ICC. This allowed for passage of the Esch-Cummins Transportation Act of 1920 and the commission's gradual assumption of regulatory jurisdiction over all other common carriers by 1940 (the Motor Carrier Act of 1935 regulated trucks; the Transportation Act of 1940, water carriers), except the airlines. In addition, the ICC had regulated telephone, telegraph, wireless, and cable services from 1910 until the Federal Communications Commission was established in 1934.

Congress, in the 1940 Transportation Act—and again in the Transportation Act of 1958—attempted to persuade the ICC to prepare a national transportation policy that would impartially regulate all modes of transportation and preserve the advantages of each. In 1966, this mission was shifted to the newly established Department of Transportation, as were the ICC's safety functions, which traced back to the Railroad Safety Appliance Act of 1893.

If the transfer of functions set a new tone for the ICC, the move to deregulate the transportation industry rendered it increasingly irrelevant. Passage of the Motor Carrier Regulatory Reform and Modernization Act of 1980 and the Staggers Rail Act of 1980 deregulated the trucking and rail industries, respectively. In 1982, Congress pared the membership of the ICC—which had grown to eleven—back to five. Staff dwindled from 2,000 to around 200. And on 29 December 1995, President William Clinton signed the ICC Termination Act into law.

Bibliography

Hoogenboom, Ari. "Interstate Commerce Commission." In A Historical Guide to the U.S. Government. Edited by George Thomas Kurian. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

———, and Olive Hoogenboom. A History of the ICC: From Panacea to Palliative. New York: Norton, 1976.

The first independent regulatory agency created by the federal government, the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) regulated interstate surface transportation between 1887 and 1995. Over its 108-year history, the agency regulated and certified trains, trucks, buses, water carriers, freight forwarders, pipelines, and many other elements of interstate transportation.

The ICC was created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 (24 Stat. 379 [49 U.S.C.A. § 1 et seq.]). The act created a five-person commission — later expanded to seven and then to eleven — to be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Among the commission's first actions was the election of its first president, Thomas McIntyre Cooley, a noted legal scholar who had been nominated by President Grover Cleveland.

Congress established the ICC to control the powerful railroad industry, then plagued by monopolistic and unfair pricing practices that often discriminated against smaller railroads and businesses as well as individual consumers. In its early years, the agency's regulatory effectiveness was severely limited by the courts, which in many cases retained the ability to review ICC rate rulings. The agency lost fifteen of its first sixteen lawsuits against the railroads, and the Supreme Court issued several decisions that hampered its regulatory powers.

Later laws gave the agency's rulings more teeth. The Elkins Act of 1903 (32 Stat. 847) allowed the ICC to punish shippers who practiced unfair competitive methods. The Hepburn Act of 1906 (34 Stat. 584) gave the agency wider powers to regulate railroad rates, making its rulings binding without a court order. The act also assigned to the ICC the oversight of all pipelines other than gas and water.

Over the years, Congress changed the focus and tasks of the ICC, gradually expanding its regulatory powers. In 1893, it entrusted the agency with the regulation of railroad safety. Later, the Motor Carrier Act of 1935 (49 Stat. 543) gave the ICC authority to regulate interstate trucking and other highway transportation. The agency even regulated telephone and telegraph communication from 1888 until 1934, when this task was transferred to the Federal Communications Commission.

Other tasks performed by the ICC included conducting hearings to examine alleged abuses; authorizing mergers in the transportation industry; overseeing the movement of railroad traffic in certain areas; granting the right to operate railroads, trucking companies, bus lines, and water carriers; and maintaining consumer protection programs that ensured fair, nondiscriminatory rates and services. At times, the agency participated in important social and political changes, as when it desegregated interstate buses and trains in the 1960s.

By the 1960s, the ICC had reached a peak size of twenty-four hundred employees, with field offices in forty-eight states. Its growth made it a target for those who sought to reduce the power and size of federal regulatory agencies. Critics claimed that ICC regulation created artificially high rates for many forms of transportation. Some charged the agency with corruption.

In 1976, the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act (90 Stat. 31 [45 U.S.C.A. § 801]) reduced the commission's powers to regulate carrier rates and practices except in a few areas where a single railroad or trucking firm monopolized a transportation route. This trend toward the deregulation of interstate commerce caused the ICC to shrink gradually in size until December 29, 1995, when President Bill Clinton signed Public Law No. 104-88, Title 1, § 102(a), 109 Stat. 807 (1995), dissolving the ICC.

In its final year, the ICC employed three hundred people and had a budget of $40 million. The legislation ending its existence moved two hundred former ICC employees to the Transportation Department, which assumed authority over former ICC functions deemed essential by Congress. These essential functions included approving railroad and bus mergers and handling railroad disputes. The new three-person Intermodal Surface Transportation Board within the Department of Transportation oversees many of the functions formerly conducted by the ICC.

See: shipping law.

A federal agency for regulating commerce that takes place in more than one state. One of its most familiar activities is regulation of trucking.

A federal agency that monitors the business operations of carriers transporting goods and people between states. Its jurisdiction includes railroads, ships, trucks, buses, oil pipelines, and their terminal facilities.

The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was a regulatory body in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, which was signed into law by President Grover Cleveland. The agency was abolished in 1995, and the agency's remaining functions were transferred to the Surface Transportation Board.

The Commission's five members were appointed by the President with the consent of the United States Senate. This was the first independent agency (or so-called Fourth Branch). The ICC's original purpose was to regulate railroads (and later trucking) to ensure fair rates, to eliminate rate discrimination, and to regulate other aspects of common carriers.

Contents 1 Creation 2 Ripley Plan to consolidate railroads into regional systems 2.1 Terminal railroads proposed 3 Racial integration of transport 3.1 History 3.2 Relationship between regulatory body and the regulated 4 Criticism 5 Abolition 6 Legacy 6.1 International influence 7 See also 8 References 9 External links

Creation

The creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission was the result of widespread and longstanding anti-railroad agitation. Western farmers, specifically those of the Grange Movement, were the dominant force behind the unrest, but Westerners generally — especially those in rural areas — believed that the railroads possessed economic power that they systematically abused. A central issue was rate discrimination between similarly situated customers and communities. Other potent issues included alleged attempts by railroads to obtain influence over city and state governments and the widespread practice of granting free transportation in the form of yearly passes to opinion leaders (elected officials, newspaper editors, ministers, and so on) so as to dampen any opposition to railroad practices. Some behavior was presumably less common; the reporter Charles Edward Russell claimed that the railroad that served his hometown had refused to ship newsprint to a newspaper editor because the editor had attacked the railroad in print.

Various sections of the Interstate Commerce Act banned "personal discrimination" and gave the Commission the power to determine maximum "reasonable" rates. Equally significant, the Elkins Act required that rates be published. Eventually, when this piece of (economic) anti-discrimination legislation was constitutionally challenged, the United States Supreme Court ruled it to be constitutional. And signally (for the future of anti-discrimination legal challenges) the Court founded its ruling upon the existence of the then new 14th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution, and its equal protection clause.

In the Supreme Court's view, the U. S. Congress through legislation could outlaw an act of (economic) discrimination against an individual or corporation if the act of discrimination constituted for the affected person(s) a failure by the discriminator to afford the affected person(s) the equal application (protection) of the rules or laws.

The Commission had a troubled start because the law that created it failed to give it adequate enforcement powers. Its powers were later expanded and subsequent legislation permitted the ICC to set minimum as well as maximum rates. Later legislation removed railroad safety from the states. A long-standing controversy was how to interpret language in the Act that banned charging more for a shorter "haul" than a longer one. Enforced in a literal manner, this clause could have driven many railroads out of business.

"The Commission is, or can be made, of great use to the railroads. It satisfies the popular clamor for a government supervision of the railroads, while at the same time that supervision is almost entirely nominal." - William H. H. Miller, US Attorney General, circa 1889.^[1]

Between 1910 and 1934, the ICC had the authority to regulate interstate telephone services. (The very name of the agency suggests that lawmakers may have planned for it to become the "single roof" over many disparate regulatory efforts.) In 1934, this authority was transferred to the new Federal Communications Commission.

Ripley Plan to consolidate railroads into regional systems

The Transportation Act of 1920 directed the Interstate Commerce Commission to prepare and adopt a plan for the consolidation of the railway properties of the United States into a limited number of systems. Between 1920–3 William Z. Ripley, a professor of political economy at Harvard University, wrote up ICC's plan for the regional consolidation of the U.S. railways. [1] His plan became known as the Ripley Plan. In 1929 the ICC published Ripley's Plan under the title Complete Plan of Consolidation. Numerous hearings were held by ICC regarding the plan under the topic "In the Matter of Consolidation of the Railways of the United States into a Limited Number of Systems".^[2]

The proposed 21 regional railroads were as follows:

1. Boston and Maine Railroad; Maine Central Railroad; Bangor and Aroostook Railroad; Delaware and Hudson Railroad
2. New Haven Railroad; New York, Ontario and Western Railway; Lehigh and Hudson River Railway; Lehigh and New England Railroad
3. New York Central Railroad; Rutland Railroad; Virginian Railway; Chicago, Attica and Southern Railroad
4. Pennsylvania Railroad; Long Island Rail Road
5. Baltimore and Ohio Railroad; Central Railroad of New Jersey; Reading Railroad; Buffalo and Susquehanna Railroad; Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway; 50% of Detroit, Toledo and Ironton Railroad; 50% of Detroit and Toledo Shore Line Railroad; 50% of Monon Railroad; Chicago and Alton Railroad (Alton Railroad)
6. Chesapeake and Ohio-Nickel Plate Railroad; Hocking Valley Railway; Erie Railroad; Pere Marquette Railway; Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad; Bessemer and Lake Erie Railroad; Chicago and Illinois Midland Railroad; 50% of Detroit and Toledo Shore Line Railroad
7. Wabash-Seaboard Air Line Railway; Lehigh Valley Railroad; Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway; Pittsburgh and West Virginia Railway; Western Maryland Railway; Akron, Canton and Youngstown Railway; Norfolk and Western Railway; 50% of Detroit, Toledo and Ironton Railroad; Toledo, Peoria and Western Railroad; Ann Arbor Railroad; 50% of Winston-Salem Southbound Railway
8. Atlantic Coast Line Railroad; Louisville and Nashville Railroad; Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway; Clinchfield Railroad; Atlanta, Birmingham and Coast Railroad; Mobile and Northern Railroad; New Orleans Great Northern Railroad; 25% of Chicago, Indianapolis and Louisville Railway (Monon Railway); 50% of Winston-Salem Southbound Railway
9. Southern Railway; Norfolk Southern Railroad; Tennessee Central Railway (east of Nashville); Florida East Coast Railway; 25% of Chicago, Indianapolis and Louisville Railway (Monon Railway)
10. Illinois Central Railroad; Central of Georgia Railway; Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway; Tennessee Central Railway (west of Nashville); St. Louis Southwestern Railway (Cotton Belt Railway); Atlanta and St. Andrews Bay Railroad
11. Chicago and North Western Railway; Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railway; Litchfield and Madison Railway; Mobile and Ohio Railroad; Columbus and Greenville Railway; Lake Superior and Ishpeming Railroad
12. Great Northern-Northern Pacific Railway; Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway; 50% of Butte, Anaconda and Pacific Railway
13. Milwaukee Road; Escanaba and Lake Superior Railroad; Duluth, Missabe and Northern Railway; Duluth and Iron Range Railroad; 50% of Butte, Anaconda and Pacific Railway; trackage rights on Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway to Portland, Oregon.
14. Burlington Route; Colorado and Southern Railroad; Fort Worth and Denver Railway; Green Bay and Western Railroad; Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad; 50% of Trinity and Brazos Valley Railroad; Oklahoma City-Ada-Atoka Railway
15. Union Pacific Railroad; Kansas City Southern Railway
16. Southern Pacific Railroad
17. Santa Fe Railway; Chicago Great Western Railway; Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railway; Missouri and North Arkansas Railway; Midland Valley Railroad; Minneapolis, Northfield and Southern Railway
18. Missouri Pacific Railroad; Texas and Pacific Railroad; Kansas, Oklahoma and Gulf Railway; Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad; Denver and Salt Lake Railroad; Western Pacific Railroad; Fort Smith and Western Railroad
19. Rock Island-Frisco Railway; Alabama, Tennessee and Northern Railroad; 50% of Trinity and Brazos Valley Railroad; Louisiana and Arkansas Railway; Meridian and Bigbee Railroad
20. Canadian National; Detroit, Grand Haven and Milwaukee Railway; Grand Trunk Western Railway
21. Canadian Pacific; Soo Line; Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic Railway; Mineral Range Railroad [2]

Terminal railroads proposed

There were 100 terminal railroads that were also proposed. Below is a sample:

1. Toledo Terminal Railroad; Detroit Terminal Railroad; Kankakee & Seneca Railroad
2. Indianapolis Union Railway; Boston Terminal; Ft. Wayne Union Railway; Norfolk & Portsmouth Belt Line Railroad
3. Toledo, Angola & Western Railway
4. Akron & Barberton Belt Railroad; Canton Railroad; Muskegon Railway & Navigation
5. Philadelphia Belt Line Railroad; Fort Street Union Depot; Detroit Union Railroad Depot & Station; 15 other properties throughout the United States
6. St. Louis & O'Fallon Railway; Detroit & Western Railway; Flint Belt Railroad; 63 other properties throughout the United States
7. Youngstown & Northern Railroad; Delray Connecting Railroad; Wyandotte Southern Railroad; Wyandotte Terminal Railroad; South Brooklyn Railway

The Transportation Act of 1940 repudiated the Consolidated Plan and it was thus abandoned.

Racial integration of transport

Although racial discrimination was never a major focus of its efforts, the ICC had to address civil rights issues when passengers filed complaints.

History

Main article: Timeline of the African-American Civil Rights Movement

• April 28, 1941 - In Mitchell v. United States, the United States Supreme Court rules that discrimination in which a colored man who had paid a first class fare for an interstate journey was compelled to leave that car and ride in a second class car was essentially unjust, and violated the Interstate Commerce Act.^[3] The court thus overturns an order of the Interstate Commerce Commission dismissing a complaint against an interstate carrier.
• June 3, 1946 - In Morgan v. Virginia, the US Supreme Court invalidates provisions of the Virginia Code which require the separation of white and colored passengers where applied to interstate bus transport. The state law is unconstitutional insofar as it is burdening interstate commerce - an area of federal jurisdiction.^[4]
• June 5, 1950 - In Henderson v. United States, the United States Supreme Court rules to abolish segregation of reserved tables in railroad dining cars. The Southern Railway had reserved tables in such a way as to allocate one table conditionally for blacks and multiple tables for whites; a black passenger travelling first-class was not served in the dining car as the one reserved table was in use. The Interstate Commerce Commission ruled the discrimination to be an error in judgement on the part of an individual steward; both the United States District Court for the district of Maryland and the US Supreme Court disagreed, finding the published policies of the railroad itself to be in violation of the Interstate Commerce Act.
• September 1, 1953 - In Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company, WAC Sarah Keys, represented by civil rights lawyer Dovey Roundtree, becomes the first black to challenge "separate but equal" in bus segregation before the Interstate Commerce Commission. While the initial ICC reviewing commissioner declined to accept the case, claiming Brown v. Board of Education "did not preclude segregation in a private business such as a bus company", Roundtree ultimately prevailed in obtaining a review by the full eleven-person commission.^[5]
• November 7, 1955 – Interstate Commerce Commission bans bus segregation in interstate travel in Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company. This extends the logic of Brown v. Board of Education (1954), a precedent ending the use of "separate but equal" as a defence against discrimination claims in education, to bus travel across state lines.
• December 5, 1960 - In Boynton v. Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court holds that racial segregation in bus terminals is illegal because such segregation violates the Interstate Commerce Act. This ruling, in combination with the ICC's 1955 decision in Keys v. Carolina Coach, effectively outlaws segregation on interstate buses and at the terminals servicing such buses.
• May 4, 1961 - The first Freedom Ride leaves Washington D.C. with nominal scheduled destination of New Orleans, only to encounter mob violence in Alabama. On May 24, freedom riders were the target of passenger arrests in Mississippi. The more than sixty Freedom Rides in the months that followed were to gain national attention, with more than 300 arrested in Jackson, Mississippi alone in a few short months.
• September 23, 1961 - Interstate Commerce Commission, at Robert F. Kennedy’s insistence, issues new rules ending discrimination in interstate travel. Effective November 1, 1961, six years after the ICC's own ruling in Keys v. Carolina Coach Company, all interstate buses required to display a certificate that reads: “Seating aboard this vehicle is without regard to race, color, creed, or national origin, by order of the Interstate Commerce Commission.”

Relationship between regulatory body and the regulated

A friendly relationship between the regulators and the regulated is evident in several early civil rights cases. Throughout the South, railroads had established segregated facilities for sleeping cars, coaches and dining cars. At the same time, the plain language of the Act (forbidding "undue or unreasonable preference" as well as "personal discrimination") could be read as an implied invitation for activist regulators to chip away at racial discrimination.

"It shall be unlawful for any common carrier subject to the provisions of this part to make, give, or cause any undue or unreasonable preference or advantage to any particular person, company, firm, corporation, association, locality, port, port district, gateway, transit point, region, district, territory, or any particular description of traffic, in any respect whatsoever; or to subject any particular person, company, firm, corporation, association, locality, port, port district, gateway, transit point, region, district, territory, or any particular description of traffic to any undue or unreasonable prejudice or disadvantage in any respect whatsoever. . . ." - 54 Stat. 902, Interstate Commerce Act, 49 U.S.C. § 3(1).

In at least two landmark cases, however, the Commission sided with the railroads rather than with the African-American passengers who had filed complaints. In both Mitchell v. United States (1941) and Henderson v. United States (1950), the U.S. Supreme Court took a more expansive view of the Act than the Commission.[3] In 1962, the ICC banned racial discrimination in buses and bus stations, but it did not do so until several months after a binding pro-integration Supreme Court decision (Boynton v. Virginia) and the Freedom Rides (in which activists engaged in civil disobedience to desegregate interstate buses).

Criticism

Two large bears "Interstate Commerce Commission" and "Federal Courts" attacking Wall Street. Shown in Puck Magazine on May 8, 1907

The limitation on railroad rates in 1906-07 depreciated the value of railroad securities, a factor in causing the panic of 1907.^[6]

Some economists and historians, such as Milton Friedman^[7] assert that existing railroad interests took advantage of ICC regulations to strengthen their control of the industry and prevent competition, constituting regulatory capture.

Abolition

Congress passed various deregulation measures in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1995, when most of the ICC's powers had been eliminated, Congress abolished the agency. Final Chair Gail McDonald oversaw transferring its remaining functions to the Surface Transportation Board.

Legacy

The ICC served as a model for later regulatory efforts. Unlike, for example, state medical boards (historically administered by the doctors themselves), the seven Interstate Commerce Commissioners and their staffs were full-time regulators who could have no economic ties to the industries they regulated. Post-1887 state and federal agencies adopted this structure. And, like the ICC, later agencies tended to be multi-headed independent commissions with staggered terms for the commissioners. At the federal level, agencies patterned after the ICC included the Federal Trade Commission (1914), the Federal Communications Commission (1934), the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (1934), the National Labor Relations Board (1935), the Civil Aeronautics Board (1940), Postal Regulatory Commission (1970) and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (1975). In recent decades, this regulatory structure of independent Federal agencies has gone out of fashion; the agencies created after the 1970s generally have single heads appointed by the President and are divisions inside executive Cabinet Departments (e.g., the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (1970) or the Transportation Security Administration (2002)). The trend is the same at the state level, though it is probably less pronounced.

International influence

The Interstate Commerce Commission had a strong influence on the founders of Australia. The Constitution of Australia provides (ss. 101-104; also s. 73) for the establishment of an Inter-State Commission, modeled after the United States' Interstate Commerce Commission. However, these provisions have largely not been put into practice; the Commission existed between 1913-1920, and 1975-1989, but never assumed the role which Australia's founders had intended for it. The ICC was abolished in 1995.

See also

• United States administrative law

References

1. ^ Thomas Frank, "Politics will undermine regulation plan" Marketplace, American Public Media, June 18, 2009.
2. ^ "NTL" (PDF). NTL. http://ntl.bts.gov/lib/000/600/642/750911.pdf. 
3. ^ Mitchell vs. United States, 1941
4. ^ Morgan v. Virginia, 1946
5. ^ Challenging the System: Two Army Women Fight for Equality, Judith Bellafaire Ph.D., Curator, Women In Military Service For America Memorial Foundation
6. ^ Edwards 1907, p. 66
7. ^ Free to Choose, 1979 (1990 edition), p.194

• Stone, Richard D. (1991). The Interstate Commerce Commission and the railroad industry: a history of regulatory policy. New York: Praeger. ISBN 0-275-93941-3. 
• Barnes, Catherine A. Journey from Jim Crow: The Desegregation of Southern Transit,Columbia University Press, 1983.
• Catsam, Derek Charles. Freedom's Main Line: The Journey of Reconciliation and the Freedom Rides, University Press of Kentucky, 2009.
• Edwards, Adolph (1907), The Roosevelt Panic of 1907, Anitrock Pub. Co, http://books.google.com/books/pdf/The_Roosevelt_Panic_of_1907.pdf?id=R3koAAAAYAAJ&output=pdf&sig=ACfU3U3H9jU4cm6V4UIBtmkHPUMsxaVsPw&source=gbs_summary_r&cad=0 

External links

• PBS | American Experience | Interstate Commerce Committee

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