The Guffey-Snyder Act was a law, officially known as the Bituminous Coal Conservation Act of 1935, passed in the United States in 1935 under Franklin D. Roosevelt as part of his New Deal. It created the Bituminous Coal Commission to set the price of coal, in order to protect the industry from low competitive rates, and end other unfair practices of competition. The law also created the Bituminous Coal Labor Board to regulate maximum work hours and minimum wages. It was later ruled to be unconstitutional because, by giving power to the federal government to control prices, it infringed upon the economic liberty of free enterprise.
It was replaced in 1937 with the Guffey-Vinson Coal Act, which the Supreme Court did find constitutional. The act resurrected the Bituminous Coal Commission and reinstated the provisions regulation price fixing and unfair practices, but removed the labor provisions of the previous act. In 1939, the Bituminous Coal Commission was abolished and its duties were transferred to the US Department of Interior.
Famous quotes containing the words coal and/or act:
“Mr. Christian, it is about time for many people to begin to come to the White House to discuss different phases of the coal strike. When anybody comes, if his special problem concerns the state, refer him to the governor of Pennsylvania. If his problem has a national phase, refer him to the United States Coal Commission. In no event bring him to me.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“The will to change begins in the body not in the mind
My politics is in my body, accruing and expanding with every act of resistance and each of my failures.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)