Witan (San Antonio, Tex.), Vol. 8, No. 2, Ed. 1 Monday, October 1, 1979 Page: 1 of 12
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F
Witan
Volume VIII, No. 2
St. Mary's University School of Law
October, 1979
THE GAS PRICE FIXERS
Washington Designed, Built And Ran The Energy Crisis
By Tom Bethell
Washington Editor of
Harper's
Copyright 1979
By Harper's Magazine.
All rights reserved.
Reprinted from the June issue.
From time to time,
American politicians assume
the responsibilities of
businessmen by adjudicating
the price at which this or that
commodity shall be sold. We
can be grateful that this does
not happen more often. When
politicans decide to wrest con-
trol of the market, they are in-
clined to discover in themselves
great funds of virtue and com-
passion, in consequence of
which they decide to set a
"fair" price, a "just" price,
which usually turns out to be a
low price. This is because the
consumer of a given commodi-
ty will always heavily out-
number the producers of it,
while all alike have one vote.
The resulting low price tends
to discourage the producers,
who may well go into a new
line of business—preferably
one that has been overlooked
by the politicans. A shortage of
the original commodity results.
The foregoing is a brief
history of natural-gas produc-
tion in the United States in the
past quarter-century. Some
may notice that the descrip-
tion equally applies to apart-
ments in cities where rent con-
trol has been enacted; it applies
also to numerous other com-
modities in various centuries
and countries. Robert Schuet-
tinger and Eamonn Butler, in
their recent book Forty Cen-
turies of Wage and Price Con-
trols, demonstrate that time
and again price controls have
led to shortage. In the United
States this began with the
American Revolution, when a
food shortage at Valley Forge
was brought about by
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1
regulated prices that had, ac-
cording to the historian Albert
Bolles, "precisely the opposite
effect to that intended, for
prices were increased rather
than diminished by the adop-
tion of the measure."
At first sight an arid topic,
no doubt of interest only to
legal specialists and fine print
readers, natural-gas pricing
turns out upon examination to
be among the most ideological
issues of our time; the subject
(according to one estimate) of
the most protracted and heated
Congressional debate since
World War II (the voting on
this issue along constitutes a
fairly accurate litmus test of
the ideological composition of
Congress); its history offering
unrivaled glimpse of the way
good legislative intentions can
turn into a nearly insoluable
bureaucratic muddle. It is the
regulatory case history par ex-
cellence.
Natural gas—methane, in its
most common form—is an effi-
cient, high-Btu (British ther-
mal unit) fuel, used in in-
dustrial boilers and, to a lesser
extent, for domestic consump-
tion (space heating and cook-
ing). It is similar to, but not to
be confused with, old-fashioned
low-energy coal gas (used to
light streetlamps in Sherlock
Holmes's London). On a Btu-
equivalent basis, natural gas
accounts for about 30 percent
of U.S. energy use, and is
distributed through 200,000
miles of pipelines, representing
assets of $26 billion. It is by far
the most desirable source of
energy from the point of view
of environmental cleanliness.
For this reason, the deregula-
tion of natural-gas prices has
(Continued on Page 9)
Will State's Appeal
Appeal To The Voters?
Valdez, Piatt and
Vance Regionalists
By Steve Malouf
On November 4, 1980 a Con-
stitutional Amendment pro-
viding the State with the right
to appeal specific and limited
pretrial rulings in criminal
cases will go before Texas
voters. H.J.R. No. 97 allows
that the State shall have the
right:
"... to an interlocutory ap-
peal, as provided by law, from
a ruling of the trial court at a
pretrial hearing as to the con-
stitutionality of a particular
statute or from a pretrial rul-
ing of the trial court on a mo-
tion to quash, dismiss, or set
aside an indictment or a mo-
tion to suppress evidence." 4
1979 Tex. Sess. Law Ser. A122.
If this amendment is adopted
it will endow the State with the
right of appeal heretofore ex-
pressly denied by ArticleV,§26
of the Texas Constitution
which prohibits the State from
appealing any rulings in
criminal cases. The amend-
ment, if adopted, will give
District Attorneys greater flex-
ibility in prosecuting criminal
cases, especially as. to alleged
errors on matters of law con-
serning search and seizure.
Depending'upon the propensity
of the. State to utilize this new
tool there could be an increased
caseload in higher courts where
the State appeals judgments
for the defendant in pre-trial
hearings.
It appears that the wording
of the Amendment is suffi-
ciently narrow to allow the
State to avoid Constitutional
invalidation under the double
jeopardy clause of the State
Constitution and Federal Con-
stitution. The Texas Court of
Criminal Appeals has held that
a person is placed in jeopardy:
"...when he is put on trial
before a court of competent
jurisdiction on an.jndictment
or information sufficient to
sustain a conviction, a jury has
been charged with his
deliverance, the indictment
read to the jury, and the plea of
the accused heard." Johnson v.
State, 73 Cr. R. 133, 164 S.W.
833 (1914).
The United States Supreme
Court has held that jeopardy
attaches:
"...in a jury trial, when a
jury is empanelled and sworn,
and, in a non-jury trial, when
the court begins to hear the
evidence: jeopardy does not at-
tach until a defendant is put to
trial before the trier of facts,
whether the trier be a jury or a
judge." Serfass v. U.S., 420 U.S.
377, 43 L.Ed. 2d 265, 95 S. Ct.
1055.
By limiting appeals to pre-
trial rulings the State avoids
action which might twice put a
defendant in jeopardy. Fur-
ther, a justiciable case exists as
result of the double jeopardy
clause only until the defendant
is found not guilty. Similar
Federal Statutes were struck
down because an appeal from a
trial verdict where the appeal
was for the exclusive and
specific purpose of obtaining
advisory opinions effectually
was a request of the court to
operate in an area limited to
legislature jurisdiction.
This Amendment signals
what might be a move towards
a more conservative stance on
law enforcement.
Apprentice lawyers squared
off in Walker National Moot
Court competition finals Oc-
tober 2, advocating alternately
the rights to trial by jury and
due process.
Robert Valdez, representing
petitioner won the Best-
Speaker award as well as first
position on the St. Mary's
regional team which competes
in Lubbock, Texas, next month.
Stewart Piatt and Lisa Vance
fill the remaining positions on
the three-member regional
team.
Ed Lavin claimed Best-Brief
honors and the $100 award.
Tom Sisson won $50 in submit-
ting the second-place brief.
In the Moot Court problem
the jury allegedly understood
little of the facts and ultimate
issues and reached an ar-
bitrary, superficial division.
Which rights prevail?
As one national magazine
suggested, "juries are on trial."
Though the lawyer-judges of
(Continued on Page 4)
'J
Walker National Moot Court Honoree Prof. Orville Walker Joins
Finalists and Judges (Left to Right) Prof. Walker, Regionalist
Lisa Vance, Prof. David Dittfurth, Best Speaker Robert Valdez,
LeRoy Jahn, Regionalist Stewart Piatt, Finalist Ed Lavin,
Finalist John Blair, Don Comuzzi, Finalist John McChristian.
I
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Witan (San Antonio, Tex.), Vol. 8, No. 2, Ed. 1 Monday, October 1, 1979, newspaper, October 1, 1979; San Antonio, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth855637/m1/1/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting St. Mary’s University School of Law.