Mr. MILLER. In a comparatively small airport like the city of Hartford, with a relatively small and not too active an airport, they do not need a whole lot of equipment, and one servicing unit operated by the city is ample and adequate to meet all of the demands of the air lines that come in there. I do not see anything unusual about that airport management contracting with one oil company, and as a matter of policy, I do not think that you should make it permanent, and you should call for bids frequently. Mr. BERMINGHAM. There may be nothing unusual with it, and if the city of Hartford in its operation of the airport wants to go into the business of distributing petroleum products, I would have to say that I would not like it, and I am opposed to it because it means a governmental agency competing with private enterprise; but wholly apart from that, under this statute all that we are asking is that a particular air line should not be required to buy its gasoline from the city of Hartford. If the city of Hartford wants to go into the gasoline business, why should it not be willing, even with all of the changes it gets from being a municipal operation, why should it not be willing to compete with Socony and Shell or anybody else that has customers on that field that may want to use the gasoline from one of those companies? Mr. MILLER. Is it not true that you can get a much more efficient system of servicing planes by installing a system such as they have at National Airport than the old system of having the trucks run on the field? Mr. BERMINGHAM. There may be lots of efficiencies that you will accomplish by doing away with the competitive system, but we are trying to enforce that system in this country. The Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission are vigorously protesting at all times anyone who departs from that method of doing business, and the Supreme Court is giving its utmost cooperation in seeing to it that those principles are adhered to. Mr. MILLER. I cannot see where the monopoly comes into that kind of a situation at all. Mr. BERMINGHAM. It is monopolistic if the city of Hartford says to the air lines using the field, "You must buy your gasoline from us." Mr. MILLER. This is the facilities used for the servicing of the planes. Mr. BERMINGHAM. Including a particular type of gasoline. Mr. BERMINGHAM. During that month or 2 months, everybody else is excluded from doing business on your field, which to my mind meets all of the tests of a monopoly. Mr. MILLER. I have not made up my mind on this bill. I am just asking the questions that come to my mind, and I am trying to clarify it. You take the American Woolen Corp., every month they call for bids for gasoline, and they get their specifications and they award the contract. Mr. BERMINGHAM. That is right. Mr. MILLER. They are not excluding any other companies. That is simply their decision for that month. Mr. BERMINGHAM. The American Woolen Co. is a consumer, and it is making up its own mind whose product it wants to use on the basis of the competitive bids received by it, and it makes its selection in a nonmonopolistic and competitive market, but the American Airlines at Hartford apparently would not have the right to do that. Mr. MILLER. No, but the city has built the airport and installed its equipment and has its interest requirements to meet, and it is a business proposition. Mr. BERMINGHAM. That is exactly the way I think it should be handled, as a business proposition. Mr. MILLER. As a business proposition, it certainly would not be unusual for the city of Hartford to determine that at its airport they are going to award the contract for gasoline for a certain period to company A. Mr. BERMINGHAM. The only point of disagreement apparently between you and me is, I do not disagree with that if that is the way the city of Hartford decides, I cannot disagree but what the city of Hartford might decide that is the way it wants to operate its field; but after it has decided that, why should it say to my company, if I am not the one with whom you want to do business, that I cannot supply my customers at your airport? You make your arrangements to get gasoline any way you want to, and you distribute those through whatever facilities you have at the field, and that is fine. You do it under a business arrangement, but why should I be prevented from serving my customers at that field? Mr. MILLER. Because I, as the manager of the airport, have installed this expensive equipment and underground pipes and I have trained men to handle it, and I am trying to protect the general public from fire hazards, and I do not want six trucks running on the field and servicing planes; and I control that situation, and I can offer better protection to the public that way. Mr. BERMINGHAM. I think that to the extent that you offer better services to the public and do a better job than I can do, you are going to get the business, but I would prefer to have you get in a competitive market rather than by barring me from using your field. Mr. MILLER. The competition comes when I call for bids for supplying that airport for a given period. Mr. BERMINGHAM. In your operation of the airport, you are setting up a funnel, so to speak, through which the products of these suppliers must go, and on the other end of the funnel are the air lines. It is the air lines that want the advantage of buying their products in a competitive market. You, as the operator of the field, may be buying them competitively, but you are going to turn around and resell them on a monopolistic basis to the air lines, and it is that to which they object. Mr. MILLER. That is all. Mr. HESELTON. I have listened to your answers to Mr. Miller's questions, and I wonder, are you not laying considerable stress on the right of the oil company to sell to what it calls customers as against the necessity of an airport operated by a State or a municipality or even the Federal Government to try to put that on a business basis, and to do in this instance what it has to do in terms of buying supplies? The very fact that it asks for bids for fuel, and the low bidder may be your company, in the operation of a municipality, does not necessarily, it seems to me, lend itself to a charge of monopolistic and un American practices. It seems to me that you are straining the argument when you say that because the municipality has by our action or the State has by our action gone into the development of a facility which incidentally gives another additional outlet for your products, that it is monopolistic when the management sees fit to adopt the very American practice of asking for competitive bids and letting a contract on a lowest bid. You do not agree with me? Mr. BERMINGHAM. I do not agree with you because it seems to me that by doing that you are depriving the air lines of the right that I think they are reasonably entitled to, of buying their products in a competitive market. It is the air line that is going to use the gasoline and it is not the city of Boston or any other municipality. Mr. HESELTON. Unfortunately, or fortunately, and I think fortunately, we have gotten in a position where our governmental units are operating these airports, and there is no one else who is able to. We have to face the fact, and try to devise means by which they can be operated soundly. It seems to me that is rather straining an argument to say that because we are doing that or because the cities and States are attempting to do that, they are engaging in monopolistic practices which are necessarily un-American. That is just an observation. There is one other question, and I do not know that it is quite an analogy. Yet it seems to me that it is basic to our thinking as we work this out. Now, your company, in common with a good many others, or practically all of the other companies, has to pay toll charges on bridges that are built by the public, and I have in mind going through New York on some of those highways and parkways and some of the bridges where tolls are charged. If I understand it correctly, the Pennsylvania Turnpike is open to truck traffic. Now, in terms of the delivery charges to which you object, that is a charge imposed on a new and better facility for which the general public, including your own company and individuals in your company, are paying. They are doing that because they want speedier transportation and safer transportation and more modern transportation. Now, it seems to me that you can hardly accept that as fair and come up with an argument that a delivery charge to an airport which, as I suggested, is an outlet for more business for yourself, and is a better transportation system for the people of this country, is subject to the objections you have raised this morning. Mr. BERMINGHAM. The distinction, Mr. Heselton, I draw between the type of charge you have just discussed, crossing a bridge or a high way or something of that sort, is that in those cases the charge that we are paying bears a reasonable relationship to the service that is being performed for us, and we are paying for a service. To take an example, let us say we drive our truck over the George Washington Bridge. I do not know what the toll is, but let us say it is $1. Čertainly it is no more than that. To measure that charge against a 3cent gallonage charge at La Guardia Field, let us say, where the trucks might go after crossing the George Washington Bridge, would result in a payment of some $180 or $200 depending on how much the truck carried. It may be purely a matter of degree. I think the few dollars we pay to cross the George Washington Bridge bears a reasonable relationship to the services that the authority performs or performed when it built that bridge for our convenience. But I do not believe that $200 charge to run that same truck on La Guardia Airport is reasonable. It bears no relationship to any service that is being performed by the airport. Mr. HESELTON. Assume a case where there is no facility open to oil companies as such, but the oil companies do enjoy the concentrated patronage in a valuable part of that airport. Would you object if we try to work this out to some kind of a fair charge for the use or the privilege of selling your product on that airport? Mr. BERMINGHAM. I do not believe that there should be a charge simply for the privilege of selling on the airfield. That is why I made the statement originally that I thought the charge should be based or should be geared in some way to the space occupied. It seems to me that that is the main criterion for assessing a charge against people who use the airport. Mr. HESELTON. It is the space occupied in relation to an over-all formula that would permit the airport to stay in business. Mr. BERMINGHAM. It does not seem to me reasonable that you would charge the baker who drives his truck on the airfield to deliver bread to the local restaurant nor would you charge the laundry company for delivering clean linens to planes or restaurants, nor would you charge the public utilities for making telephone and water connections. Why should gasoline be singled out? Mr. HESELTON. It might be extremely difficult to work out a formula under which everyone that was on that airport for the purpose of making a profit-and in almost every instance, so far as I know, making a profit-should be expected to pay a fair share of the cost of operation of that airport. I cannot see any argument against that. I do not care particularly how you do it, but I think that that is fundamental if we are going to get out of the business of having the general public and that includes everybody whether they use the air lines or not-paying this subsidy. Mr. BERMINGHAM. I do not believe that we are in any real disagreement. I agree with you that those who do business on the airport should be required to pay their share of whatever is necessary to make that airport pay. Mr. HESELTON. I have just one final question, and it may not be properly directed to you, but I want to get it in somewhere. Have you any records to show the gas tax rates in the country? no, Mr. BERMINGHAM. I do not have them available at this moment; sir. Mr. HESELTON. Is there any way you can explain them to us for the record? Mr. BERMINGHAM. I could get them for you; yes, sir. Mr. HESELTON. Would it be too much of a job? Mr. BERMINGHAM. No. Mr. HESELTON. Personally, Mr. Chairman, I think it might be helpful to have that as a part of the record. Mr. DOLLIVER. We will be very glad to have it. (The information is as follows:) 1 In addition to the State gasoline tax the Federal Government imposes 11⁄2 cent per gallon gasoline tax on which there is no refund or exemption. 2 See notes accompanying name of State. 3 Aviation fuel is taxed by separate act instead of under gasoline tax law. X in refund columns or in exemption column means full tax is refunded or exempted. NOTES Alabama: By regulation, tax exemption is granted to civil schools of aeronautics under contract with Federal Government on gasoline used solely in planes owned by the United States operated for training air corps flying cadets. Regulation issued Nov. 17, 1939. Arizona: Under sales tax law regulations based upon attorney general's opinion of Mar. 13, 1937, respecting imposition of sales (gross income) tax, the 2 percent retail sales tax may properly be imposed upon income received from the sale of gasoline upon which the 5-cent State highway tax has been paid, but which has been refunded. California: Sec. 6357, Revenue and Taxation Code, provides that where refund on nonhighway use of gasoline is granted the controller is to deduct the sales tax of 21⁄2 percent before making refund. Colorado: Refund gasoline is subject to the 2 percent sales tax since it does not fall within the requirement for sales tax exemption as specified in sec. 15, ch. 144, 1935 Colorado Statutes Annotated. Connecticut: The 3 percent retail sales tax does not apply where the gasoline tax is paid (Laws 1947 (H. B. 1129), ch. 228, sec. 70). District of Columbia: Under Virginia law sales of aviation gasoline to aircraft at Washington National Airport is tax-exempt. Florida: Aviation fuel testing 78 octane number or higher is tax exempt (Stats. 1941, sec. 208.05). Georgia: Distributor sales of gasoline to U. S. Government are exempt. However, on cash sales to United States at service stations or dealer outlets, Form 1094 will be required. Resolutions confirming Executive order suspending tax on motor fuel used in training air pilots were adopted (Laws 1941, Res. 54, |