Petrolane Inc. v. United States
Opinion
lead Opinion
Hauk, J.
DECISION AND ORDERS
This matter has come on before the Court upon plaintiff’s Motion to Compel Answers to Interrogatories and Production of Documents, and Government defendants’ Motion For Protective Order. The case involves the determination, application, and constitutionality of rules and regulations of the United States Department of Energy with respect to plaintiff oil company’s method of computing prices involving two conflicting systems of inventory calculation, popularly known as (1) the separate (regional) inventory method; and (2) the single (national) inventory method.
I. Background
On August 17, 1973, as part of Phase IV of the federal government’s Economic Stabilization Program, the Department of Energy 1 announced a regulatory system limiting the prices which a reseller or retailer of petroleum products could charge for those petroleum products. 2 See 38 Fed.Reg. 22536 (1973) (incorporating 6 C.F.R. § 150 .-351 et seq.). Under these regulations, a reseller or retailer 3 of the covered products 4 could charge his “product cost” plus an “actual markup” cost, defined as the difference between the price charged on a specified base date (January 10, 1973) and the cost…