SCOTUS Asked to Consider Cable Fees Preemption
Cable ISPs enjoy regulatory fee favoritism from a court decision that the Cable Act preempts states and localities from levying cable regulatory fees on non-cable services provided using cable networks (see 210526003), said localities and allies in a petition for…
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writ of certiorari filed Monday with the Supreme Court. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision is at odds with an Oregon Supreme Court ruling, and that conflict needs resolution, said the petitions, which include Eugene, Oregon; Boston; Fairfax County, Virginia; Maryland's Anne Arundel, Howard and Prince George's counties; Hawaii; and NATOA. They urged SCOTUS to provide clarity on implied preemption. The FCC and NCTA didn't comment. NATOA General Counsel Nancy Werner told us the FCC's cable local franchise authority order and the 6th Circuit's subsequent upholding of much of it complicated LFA renewal negotiations, with parties having to negotiate for different scenarios, depending on what the 6th Circuit might do. She said localities have significant concerns about how the LFA order might affect budgets, but the 6th Circuit's ruling that calculating franchise fees must be based on cable operators' marginal costs instead of market value of what's provided softened the blow. Many local franchise obligations probably have no marginal cost to cable operators, she said.