Richfield Oil Corp. v. Public Utilities Commission

TRAYNOR, J. — In this proceeding Richfield Oil Corporation attacks an order of the Public Utilities Commission directing it to cease and desist from constructing a pipeline to connect with its Mandalay pipeline, the operation of which we considered in Richfield Oil Corp. v. Public Util. Com., 54 Cal.2d 419 [6 Cal.Rptr. 548, 354 P.2d 4], cert, den., Southern Counties Gas Co. v. Public Utilities Corn., 364 U.S. 900 [81 S.Ct. 233, 5 L.Ed.2d 193].

In the first Richfield ease we annulled orders of the commission that determined that Richfield was a public utility gas corporation and directed it to cease and desist from delivering gas to Edison’s Mandalay steam-electric generating plant through a 20-inch pipeline from Richfield’s Cuyama Valley and San Joaquin Valley oil and gas fields. We held that the commission had attempted to regulate and prohibit Rich-field’s nonpublic utility activities and that Richfield’s service to Edison was such a nonpublic utility activity.

While that case was pending in this court, Richfield started construction of the pipeline involved in this ease. It is a 6-inch pipeline 8 miles long from Richfield’s Rincon Island field to its Mandalay line, and Richfield proposed to use it to substitute Rincon gas pro tanto for valley gas in its service to Edison. On the complaint of Southern Counties Gas Company, the commission ordered Richfield to cease and desist from constructing the new Rincon pipeline. It found that both the Mandalay line and the new Rincon line were gas plants (Pub. Util. Code, §221), that the Rincon line was an extension of the Mandalay line, and that Richfield was required to secure a certificate of public convenience and necessity to construct the Rincon line (Pub. Util. Code, § 1001).

The commission’s determination that Richfield is subject to its jurisdiction in this ease is based on essentially the same facts it relied on in making its prior orders. Some additional evidence was introduced by Richfield, however, in an attempt to overcome any inference of dedication that might be drawn from the evidence in the prior record. It consisted of evidence of Richfield’s disposition of its gas after its contract with Pacific Lighting terminated; its sale of the wells from which it had sold gas to Pacific Gas and Electric Company; its sale of gas to a gas utility to supply gas to its company town in Cuyama Valley; the sale of gas from a field in which Richfield has an interest by an operating oil company to a gas utility; and testimony of Travers, Richfield’s vice-president, explaining his prior testimony. Southern Counties and the commission [189]