Mr. Justice JACKSON, with whom Mr. Chief Justice VINSON joins, dissenting.
The Erie Railroad Company is a common carrier engaged in interstate commerce. By a specific tariff filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission pursuant to the Interstate Commerce Act it and severa other rail carriers have long published a joint and proportional through-tariff on anthracite coal from coal mining stations in Pennsylvania to points in New York and New Jersey. The tariff provides for storage-in-transit services at Coalberg, New Jersey, with reshipment to destination under original agreements. Independent Warehouses, Inc., as contract agent for the Erie, operates these storage-in-transit facilities, has custody of the coal in storage under Erie tariffs as a public warehouseman, and issues warehouse receipts for coal received under railroad waybills. Title to Coalberg is in the Pennsylvania Coal Co., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Erie, and it receives from Independent Warehouses one dollar per year for its lease. The Erie ultimately bears all losses and gets all gains. It is apparent that Coalberg is a facility for storage in transit of coal operated as part of the Erie's interstate transportation service.
The function of the storage in transit is vital. During the summer season, consumption of anthracite coal is light and neither dealers nor consumers in the City of New York and elsewhere are able to store adequate winter reserves. At critical times there would be grave danger of inadequate fuel supplies from interruptions of transportation or of mining operations if stock piles were not accumulated near consuming centers, such as New York, to be drawn upon in periods of peak demand. Therefore, the railroad accepts coal shipments which it mingles in stock piles at Coalberg, near New York, with the privilege to the shipper of ordering the same grade and quantity sent on to destination as needed. When orders for reshipment come, they are drawn from stock piles and delivered. Storage-in-transit is a device to equalize the demands on coal transportation facilities and to provide a reserve supply of coal for periods when consumption exceeds production, to enable movement away from the mines during the period when production exceeds consumption, and to finance future purchases by warehouse receipts issued against coal in transit. It is an essential part of dependable and lowcost transportation of anthracite coal from the mines to the great metropolitan consuming area.
For the privilege of operating this storage-in-transit facility at Coalberg in New Jersey, the municipality demands an annual license fee, in advance, which it is alleged would amount to $20,475. This is merely for the privilege of doing the business. The property used in the operation is also subject to the usual property tax on a valuation of $133,875, which is not in question.
The issue is whether this local privilege tax unconstitutionally burdens interstate commerce. The burden and its substantiality are undeniable, but the Court concludes that these local assessments upon interstate traffic are within the power of the state and, of course, the amount, be it $20,000 per year or $20,000,000 per year, is wholly for the local authorities to determine if their power to tax is upheld.
I cannot agree that the commerce clause of the Federal Constitution has left interstate traffic vulnerable to such local permissions and burdens. Because the immediate impact of the tax is on a railroad, we should not delude ourselves as to its real effect. It is a tax on traffic-on the movement of goods-and its weight is shifted from the carrier to the consumer. There is, of course, a 'local incident,' a stoppage in transit, a reloading. 'Local incidents' of some sort can be identified in all interstate transportation. But in this case local sales or deliveries are insubstantial in amount. The whole operation is incidental to interstate transportation and not to any local business. It is integrated in operation, ownership and management with transportation. It is under the federal commerce power and under Interstate Commerce Commission regulation. The stoppage may be longer than many other stoppages in transit incident to railroading. But the storage of perpetually renewed and continuously drawn-upon stock piles is no longer than necessary to adapt transportation facilities to the needs of an economy, one end of which must engage in continuous production and the other in only seasonal consumption. That a single municipality or state can fasten local tax burdens upon such an incident makes interstate commerce vulnerable to the very barriers and obstructions the commerce clause of the Constitution was designed to end.