The five out-of-state electric companies with an ownership interest in the Four Corners Generating Station, Arizona Public Service Company, Southern California Edison, Public Service Company of New Mexico, Salt River Project, Tucson Electric Power, and El Paso Electric, filed an action in the district court of Santa Fe County seeking a declaratory judgment that the New Mexico energy tax was unconstitutional and void.

The motion requested authorization to file an action against New Mexico under the Court's original jurisdiction.

For purposes of this section a tax is discriminatory if it results, either directly or indirectly, in a greater tax burden on electricity which is generated and transmitted in interstate commerce than on electricity which is generated and transmitted in intrastate commerce.

[3]The New Mexico Supreme Court issued a ruling in 1978 and found that the state energy tax was valid.

[4] The electric companies then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, claiming that the tax violated the Commerce and Export-Import Clauses of the Constitution and was invalid under 15 U.S.C.

§ 391 had been discussed by the Senate, it had been stated that the statute had supposedly been drafted to do no more than what the Commerce Clause would accomplish on its own terms.