Suchergebnisse

The writing of this article is an experience in frustration and despair, for in Tennessee there is little recognition of the existence of any such body of principle, of legal concepts and techniques, of procedures and practice, as "administrative law." There is one law, substantive and procedural, for beer boards, another for the Public Service Commission, another for the rate-making decisions of the insurance commissioner, another for employment insurance benefits,another for licensing well-diggers, and so on ad infinitum--a separate law, both substantive and procedural, not only for each agency, but often for each function within an agency. All of these diverse agencies which now regulate practically every business and touch the life of every individual in this state are performing the same basic functions. They are granting and revoking licenses, establishing and enforcing standards of doing business, fixing rates and charges, and so on. There should be, and are, from the standpoint of sound policy at least, certain standards of fairness, of regularity in procedure, and of efficiency in enforcement which form a basis for performing the functions of all these agencies.

By virtue of the nature of our federal system every attempt to regulate extensive economic activity involves constantly recurring problems as to the proper allocation of governmental power between the state and national governments, and thus problems as to the proper balancing of local or state and national interests. The development of motor carrier regulation in the United States has been controlled by the general concepts of federalism and exemplifies the nature of the basic problems inherent in those concepts. The purpose of this article is to examine the regulation of motor carriers from the standpoint of the allocation of governmental powers and to offer some tentative conclusions as to the effectiveness of the present system of regulation in this regard.