The business of piping natural gas from one State to another to local distributors which sell it locally to consumers is a branch of interstate commerce which a State may not regulate.[877] Likewise, an order by a State commission fixing rates on electric current generated within the States and sold to a distributor in another State, imposes an unconstitutional burden on interstate commerce, although the regulation of such rates would necessarily benefit local consumers of electricity furnished by the same company.[878] In the absence, on the other hand, of contrary regulation by Congress a State may regulate the sale to consumers in its cities of natural gas produced in and transmitted from another State;[879] nor did Congress, by the National Gas Act of 1938, impose any such contrary regulation.[880] Likewise, a State is left free by the same act to require a gas company engaged in interstate commerce to obtain a certificate of convenience before selling directly to customers in the State.[881] And where a pipe line is used to distribute both gas that is brought in from without the State and gas that is produced and used within the State, and the two are commingled, but their proportionate quantities are known, an order by the State commission directing the gas company to continue supplying gas from the line to a certain community does not burden interstate commerce.[882] The transportation of natural gas from sources outside the State to local consumers in its municipalities ceases to be interstate commerce at the point where it passes from a pressure producing station into local distributing stations, and from that point is subject to State regulation.[883] A State public utilities commission is entitled to require a natural gas distributing company seeking an increase of rates to show the fairness and reasonableness of the rate paid by it to the pipe line company from which it obtains its supplies, both companies being subsidiaries of a third.[884] A State agency may require a company which sells natural gas to local consumers and distributing companies, transporting it in pipe lines from other States, to file contracts, agreements, etc., for sales and deliveries to the distributing companies;[885] nor does the fact that a natural gas pipe line from the place of production to the distributing points in the same State cuts across a corner of another State render it improper, in determining maximum rates for gas sold by the owner of the pipe line to distributing companies, to include the value of the total line in the rate base.[886] A State may, as a conservation measure, fix the minimum prices at the wellhead on natural gas produced in the State and sold interstate.[887]
A State may require that a foreign corporation as a condition of its being admitted to do a local business or to having access to its courts obtain a license, and in connection therewith furnish information as to its home State or country, the location of its principal office, the names of its officers and directors, its authorized capitalization, and the like, and that it pay a reasonable license fee;[888] nor is a corporation licensed by the National Government to act as a customs broker thereby relieved from meeting such conditions.[889] So it was decided in 1944. The holding does not necessarily disturb one made thirty years earlier in which the Court ruled that a statute which closed the courts of the enacting State to any action on any contract in the State by a foreign corporation unless it had previously appointed a resident agent to accept process, could not be constitutionally applied to the right of a foreign corporation to sue on an interstate transaction.[890] A suit brought in a State court by a foreign corporation having its principal place of business in the State against another foreign corporation engaged in interstate commerce on a cause of action arising outside the State does not impose an undue burden on such commerce; and the forum being in other respects appropriate, its jurisdiction is not forfeited because the property attached is an instrumentality of interstate commerce.[891] There is nothing in the commerce clause which immunizes a foreign corporation doing business in a State from any fair inquiry, judicial or legislative, that is required by local laws.[892]
MISCELLANEOUS
Banks and Banking
A State statute which forbids individuals or partnerships to engage in the banking business without a license is not, as to one whose business chiefly consists in receiving deposits for periodic shipment to other States and to foreign countries, invalid as a regulation of interstate and foreign commerce.[893]
Brokers
A statute which requires dealers in securities evidencing title or interest in property to obtain a license from a State officer, is not invalid as applied to dispositions within the State securities transported from other States.[894]
Commission Men
A statute requiring commission merchants to give bonds for the protection of consignees may be validly applied to commission merchants handling produce shipped to them from without the State.[895]