Some Constitutional Aspects of the Oil Problem

Abstract

On Feb. 22, 1934, the A.I.M.E. Petroleum Division StabilizationCommittee conducted a symposium in New York City on stabilization of the oil industry.Among those taking active part in the discussion were Messrs. Sidney Swensrud, JosephE. Pogue, W. S. Farish, J. B. Umpleby, H. D. Wilde, W.E. Wrather, Northcutt Ely, E. L. DeGolyer, E. A. Stephenson, Earl Oliver, Amos L. Beaty, Nathan R. Margold, Henry M. Bates and Roscoe Pound. Because of the volume of this discussion it waswithheld from publication in the 1934 annual petroleum volume with the expectation thata special volume on Petroleum Stabilization would be issued during the year inwhich the entire discussion could be published. That was not done. The addresses ofDean Bates and Dean Pound, dealing as they do with broad principles ofConstitutional law, are as timely now as they were when delivered one year ago and arereproduced herein for their bearing on current legislative proposals. Some Constitutional Aspects of the Oil Problem Henry M. Bates, Dean of Michigan Law School Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: I accepted your Chairman's invitation to speak toa group of experts in this field with the greatest hesitation, because I knowlittle or nothing about it. Certainly I can make no detailed suggestions, orsuggest planning along very definite lines. You cannot do that sort of thing in avacuum, and as I have suggested, my knowledge of the whole oil problem is next tonothing… It is possible that as a student of our public law, constitutional lawparticularly, for a number of years, I have acquired a perspective that may enable me tooffer, for what they are worth, some general thoughts on these problems. I think that nothing in the whole field of law requires more definitelyand clearly the functional approach than does the problem of a sound legal solutionof the difficulties of the oil and gas industry. The industry is dealingwith substances that are peculiar, and one must know how those substances act andwhat has been the history of the industry, to undertake to make anything likespecific suggestions. I certainly am not qualified.