delivered the opinion of the court.
Thеse are appeals by different groups of defendant^ below from decrees prohibiting public conunissions and officers of Kansas and Missouri, certain ^municipalities and many local gas distributing companies from interfering with establishment and maintenance of selling rates for gas to consumers sufficiently high to compensate receivers of thе Kansas Natural Gas Company. 234 Fed. Rep. 152; 242 Fed. Rep. 658; 245 Fed. Rep. 950.
The Kansas Natural Gas Company — hereinafter, The Gas Company — a Delaware corporation, оwned a system of pipe lines extending from Oklahoma and Kansas points to some, forty terminal towns and cities in Kansas and Missouri and produced, purchased, transported, distributеd and sold natural gas prior to October 9, 1912. During the years 1904-1908 by separate agreements it undertook to supply many local companies with gas for ultimate sale to their customers and to accept therefor a definite proportion — generally two-thirds — of the gross amounts paid by such customers. .Permanent physical connections рermitted gas to pass from The Gas Com-many’s pipe lines into the several local companies’ mains. The latter operated under special ordinances usuаlly specifying the rates which customers should pay; and, exeept in four relatively unimportant places, the former had no local franchise permitting either distribution or sale of gas, nor did it own any interest in a defendant distributing company.
The Gas Company procured gas by drilling, purchase or otherwise. in Southern Kansas and Oklahoma — six per cent, in thе former — forced, it through pipe lines and delivered it in the local mains at the connection points. None was obtained in Missouri. Having received gas at the conneсtion points the several local companies dis *243 tributed and sold it, collected established rates and settled with The Gas Company as agreed. Approximately forty-fоur per cent, of the total was thus sold to customers in Kansas and fifty-six per cent, in Missouri.
October 9, 1912, the United States District Court for Kansas appointed receivers for The Gas Company and shortly thereafter, acting under § 56, Judicial Code, extended the receivership to Missouri and Oklahoma. It is unnecessary to detail subsequent changes in respect of this receivership. The receivers took over the company’s property, affairs and business and operated them under orders of the court; without specificаlly adopting or disavowing the supply contracts of 1904-1908 they continued to deliver gas to local distributing companies and to accept payments as originally agreed.
Available gas diminished; pipe lines to new wells became necessary; operating costs increased; and the sums received from local distributing companies were inadequate for the receivers’ demands. In 1915 they petitioned the Kansas Public Utilities Commission to permit higher charges to customers by local companies. Responding thе Commission authorized, December 10, 1915, what is known as the “28 Cent Schedule” — much below the rates requested.
Claiming jurisdiction over distribution and sale of gas in that State and power to fix the rates which local companies should both pay and charge therefor, the Missouri Public Service Commission suspended some proposed advanced rates to сonsumers and threatened to enforce further appropriate orders if found necessary. Certain local companies, notably the Kansas City Gas Company, insist thаt the receivers should comply with the original supply contracts between them and The Gas Company.
In December, 1915, the receivers began this proceeding against Kansas Public Utilities Commission, Missouri Public Sendee Commission, thirty-two local distributing *244 companies and forty-seven cities and towns in those States. After setting out the history of The Gas Company the bill alleged that the above-described actions by state commissions resulted in imposing upon the receivers inadequate and confiscatory rates and. unduly burdened the interstate commerce which they were carrying on by transporting and selling gas; that the original supply contracts with distributing companies, although never adopted by them, were improvident, wasteful, a fraud upon creditors and no longer obligatory; that the city ordinances fixing prices to customers were unreasonable, non-compensatory and cоnfiscatory of estate and property in the receivers’ hands. They asked an appropriate injunction restraining the commissions, municipalities and distributing companiеs from interfering with establishment of reasonable and compensatory rates for selling-gas,to consumers.
The court below held the business, carried on- by the receivers — transрortation of natural gas and its disposition and sale to consumers through the distributing companies —was interstate commerce of a national character; that the сommissions’ actions interfered with establishment and maintenance of reasonable sale rates and thereby burdened interstate commerce and took the recеivers’ property without due process of law; that the original supply contracts were not binding upon the receivers. And it accordingly enjoined the commissions, their membеrs, the attorneys general of' both States, the varieüs municipalities and the distributing companies from interfering with establishment of such reasonable and compensatory ratеs as the court might approve.
We think the trial court properly overruled the objections offered to its jurisdiction and. nothing need be added to the reasons which it gavе. 234 Fed. Rep. 152, 155. But we cannot agree with its conclusions that local companies in distributing and selling gas to their customers *245 acted as mere agents, immediate representatives or in-strumentalities of the receivers and as such carried on without interruption interstate commerce set in motion by them.
That the transportation of gas through pipe lines from one State to another is interstate commerce may not be doubted. Also, it is clear that as part of such commerce the receivers might sell and deliver gas so transported to local distributing compames free from unreasonable interference by the State.
American Express Co.
v.
Iowa,
But in no proper sense can it be said, under the facts here disclosed, that sale and delivery of gas to their customers at burner-tips by the local companies operating under special franchises constituted any pаrt of interstate commerce. The companies received supplies which had moved in such commerce and then disposed thereof at retail in due coursе of their own local business. Payment to the receivers of sums amounting to two-thirds of' the product of these sales did not make them intégral parts of their interstate business. In fact, they lacked authority to engage by agent or otherwise in the retail transactions carried on by the local companies. Interstate commerce is a practical concéption and what falls within it must be determined upon- consideration of established facts and known commercial methods.
Rearick
v.
Pennsylvania,
. The challenged orders related directly to prices for gas at burner-tips and only indirectly to the receivers ’ business. They were under no cоmpulsion to accept un-remunerative prices; even the original supply contracts, had not been adopted and were subject to rejection. See
Newark Natural Gas & Fuel Co.
v.
Newark,
The decrees below must be reversed and the cause re-* manded for further proceedings in conformity with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.