Emergency Price Control Act of 1942

Emergency Price Control Act of 1942

Long title	An Act to further the national defense and security by checking speculative and excessive price rises, price dislocations, and inflationary tendencies, and for other purposes.
Acronyms (colloquial)	EPCA
Enacted by	the 77th United States Congress
Effective	January 30, 1942
Citations
Public law	77-421
Statutes at Large	56 Stat. 23
Codification
Titles amended	50 U.S.C.: War and National Defense
U.S.C. sections created	50a U.S.C. § 901
Legislative history
Introduced in the House as H.R. 5990 by Henry B. Steagall (D-AL) on November 7, 1941 Committee consideration by House Banking and Currency and Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Passed the House on November 28, 1941 (224-161) Passed the Senate on January 10, 1942 (84-1) Reported by the joint conference committee on January 10, 1942; agreed to by the House on January 26, 1942 (289-114) and by the Senate on January 27, 1942 (65-14) Signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on January 30, 1942
Major amendments
Stabilization Act of 1942

The Emergency Price Control Act of 1942 is a United States statute imposing an economic intervention as restrictive measures to control inflationary spiraling and pricing elasticity of goods and services while providing economic efficiency to support the United States national defense and security. The Act of Congress established the Office of Price Administration (OPA) as a federal independent agency being officially created by Franklin D. Roosevelt on April 11, 1941.

The H.R. 5990 legislation was passed by the 77th U.S. Congressional session and enacted into law by Franklin D. Roosevelt on January 30, 1942.

The Emergency Price Control Act was penned as three titles specifying rulings for price controls regarding agricultural commodities, goods and services, and real property. The Act provided authority for enforcement, investigative reporting, and reviews of price stabilization schedules by the Office of Price Administration. The law specified a time limit whereas orders, price schedules, regulations, and requirements by the Act were to terminate by June 30, 1943.

The Emergency Price Control Act engendered significant controversy regarding delegation of Congressional power, executive wartime authority, and Congressional control of federal jurisdiction. Much of this stemmed from the Act's creation of the Emergency Court of Appeals, an Article III court which had all "the powers of a district court with respect to the jurisdiction conferred on it," except it lacked the ability to issue temporary restraining orders or interlocutory decrees that would stay the effectiveness of any order, regulation, or price schedule issued by the Price Administrator of the Act. The Emergency Court had exclusive jurisdiction to hear complaints relating to actions of the Administrator except those relating to enjoining violations of the act/securing orders of compliance, treble damage actions, and criminal prosecutions for willful violations. For these, the Emergency Court shared jurisdiction with state courts. If anyone disagreed with an action taken by the Administrator (such as a price set), she would file a protest with the Administrator and if that was denied, she had thirty days to file a complaint with the Emergency Court. She could not file in any other district court, and the Emergency Court decisions were appealleable directly to the Supreme Court.

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