Interstate Commerce Act, federal law comprising a number of congressional enactments that provide for the regulation by the United States government of domestic surface transportation in interstate commerce. The regulatory authority of Congress is derived from Article I, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution. The first of these congressional enactments, in 1887, entitled “An Act to Regulate Commerce,” created the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) and established reasonable and just rates. The law of 1887 pertained to common carriers engaged in the transportation of passengers and property wholly by railroad or by rail and by water. It required that the carriers publicize their rate schedules, and it forbade changes of rates without due notice to the public. Subsequent amending acts were the Elkins Act of 1903, prohibiting the railroads from granting secret rebates and from establishing discriminatory rates; the Hepburn Act of 1906, extending the jurisdiction of the federal government over interstate commerce to include express companies, companies operating pipelines transporting petroleum products, and companies operating sleeping cars on the railroads; and the Transportation Act of 1920, empowering the ICC to prescribe intrastate rates when necessary to eliminate discrimination against carriers in interstate commerce.

In 1935 all the enactments were grouped together by Congress to form Part I of a new law entitled the Interstate Commerce Act; at the same time the Motor Carrier Act, extending federal regulatory authority to motor carriers engaged in interstate commerce, was enacted as Part II of the Interstate Commerce Act. A further extension of federal powers over interstate commerce was contained in the Transportation Act of 1940; some sections of this law, which gave the ICC authority to regulate common carriers operating in interstate commerce in the coastal, intercoastal, and inland waters of the U.S., were included as Part III of the Interstate Commerce Act. Part IV of the act, adopted by Congress in 1942, comprised regulations governing the operations of freight forwarders. As these various enactments enlarged the regulatory powers of the federal government over interstate commerce, the jurisdiction of the ICC was correspondingly extended by the provisions of this legislation. In 1967 jurisdiction over transportation was transferred to the newly created Department of Transportation. See Transportation, Department of.

See also Interstate Commerce Commission.