Arizona Electric Power Cooperative, Inc. v. United States

O’SCANNLAIN, Circuit Judge:

Perhaps inspired by Jarndyce v. Jarndyce, the fabled interminable litigation of Dickens' Bleak House, the Interstate Commerce Commission has been presiding over this continuing saga for the last ten years, now in its sixth epoch.

Piercing the musty veil of regulatory sophistry surrounding this proceeding, we see that the Commission had a simple task: to determine the reasonableness of the rate intervenor-respondents charged petitioner for hauling coal in unit trains between 1977 and 1982. Petitioner originally sought such determination in 1977 before the first…