The FTC violated the Constitution and exceeded its rulemaking authority when it issued a rule aimed at making it easier for consumers to cancel subscriptions, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, NCTA, the Interactive Advertising Bureau and other industry groups said in three different lawsuits filed Tuesday in three separate appeals courts.
Notable CROSS rulings
Possible harm to the public interest outweighs the presence of competition in a Connecticut market where Verizon seeks deregulation, the state’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) said in a proposed decision released Thursday. PURA plans to vote Oct. 16 on the draft, which would deny Verizon’s petition to reclassify its remaining services as competitive and retire the company’s alternative form of regulation plan.
The FCC expanded the reporting area for communications outages caused by Hurricane Helene to include counties in Tennessee and Virginia and additional counties in South Carolina, said a public notice in Monday’s Daily Digest. Reports from the affected counties show communications services experiencing outages from the storm but improving.
Verizon faced tough cross-examination Friday as consumer advocates hammered the company’s petition for Connecticut deregulation. Paul Vasington, the carrier's senior director-regulatory and government affairs, said during a Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) virtual hearing that the market where the ILEC seeks deregulation has reached “full potential” competitively given many VoIP and wireless options. However, officials from the Connecticut Office of Consumer Counsel (OCC) questioned whether Verizon competitors offer services that are the functional equivalent of landlines.
In a dissent attached to a combined $3.6 million forfeiture against Sinclair Broadcast and others over kidvid violations, FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington has vowed he will dissent from monetary forfeitures until the agency “formally determines the bounds of its enforcement authority.” Simington's move comes in the wake of the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision SEC v. Jarkesy. The order was approved 3-2, with Commissioner Brendan Carr also dissenting. The forfeiture order was adopted Aug.14, but not released until Thursday. The FCC didn't immediately comment on the delay. “I call on the Commission to open a Notice of Inquiry to determine the new constitutional contours of Commission enforcement authority,” Simington wrote. “The statutory structure governing the FCC’s forfeiture power is quite different from that of the SEC,” the FCC said in a footnote in the order, arguing that the agency’s enforcement actions don’t violate the Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial as SCOTUS ruled the SEC’s do.
A district court was wrong when it allowed a 2023 Virginia law that gave ISPs access rights to railroad properties, the Association of American Railroads (AAR) said Monday at the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (case 24-1399). AAR is appealing a U.S. District Court for Eastern Virginia decision to dismiss the lawsuit against state officials, including Virginia State Corporation Commission Judge Jehmal Hudson for lack of standing and other reasons (see 2404170052). The contested Virginia law allows broadband providers to obtain a license to cross and occupy railroad property for a one-time $2,000 fee and direct expenses of not more than $5,000, paid to the railroad. Among other provisions, the law requires that railroad companies approve ISP applications within 35 days unless they seek relief from the Virginia commission. In an opening brief at the 4th Circuit, AAR argued that the district court wrongly ruled the association lacked standing to bring the complaint because the law was “aimed directly at its members.” The Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act (ICCTA) preempts the Virginia law, AAR argued. The ICCTA is a 1995 statute that set exclusive federal regulation of railroad transportation, AAR said. It “preempts any state law that discriminates against or unduly burdens rail transportation, including railroad property,” AAR noted. “And a government-sanctioned physical occupation of private property is a per se taking, requiring just compensation.” The lower court “wrongly conclud[ed] that discrimination is not a standalone basis for ICCTA preemption, but a mere limit on an unwritten ‘police powers’ exception to express ICCTA preemption,” it said. Meanwhile, in concluding that the Fifth Amendment's takings clause wasn’t violated, "the court lumped together different kinds of crossings, imported (and misunderstood) facts from an amicus brief, drew inferences against AAR, and wrongly assumed that after-the-fact compensation avoids a Takings Clause violation,” AAR said. Carriers will use the state law “to cross railroad property hundreds or thousands of times,” the railroads group said, arguing for its termination. Even if one crossing were "minimally intrusive," AAR said, "dozens or hundreds of permanent and immovable crossings will aggregate to hinder railroads’ use and development of their property."
The FCC should proceed with caution or reconsider entirely a proposal that imposes on the nine largest ISPs specific reporting requirements on their border gateway protocol (BGP) security practices, ISPs and industry groups said in comments posted through Thursday in docket 24-146 (see 2406060028). The Biden administration "supports properly implemented and narrowly constructed" BGP reporting requirements, NTIA said. "The FCC's action should be appropriately tailored to preserve the highly successful multistakeholder model of internet governance."
Frontier Communications could pay nearly $2.5 million for missing two Connecticut service-quality standards, the state’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority said Wednesday. PURA issued the notice of violation after Connecticut commissioners voted 3-0 at a livestreamed meeting on a final decision (docket 24-01-15) directing the company to provide additional reporting about failures to meet metrics.
The commercial space industry widely objects to the FCC's proposed "object-years" approach for space safety, with numerous operators in comments last week calling it ineffective and more than one deriding it as "simplistic" (docket 18-313). Those comments were part of a record refresh in the FCC's orbital debris mitigation docket (see 2405020048). The FCC's object-years proposal would cap at 100 the number of years failed satellites in a constellation could remain in orbit. It has placed 100 object-years conditions on several non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) constellations in the past year (see 2406120006).
The FCC is increasingly leaning toward an "object-years" regulatory approach to space safety, experts say. But some warn of flaws in the approach. The agency is seeking input, due June 27, on its orbital debris open proceeding about using a 100 object-years benchmark -- a cap on the total cumulative time to deorbit failed satellites -- for assessing the risk of a constellation's derelict satellites (see 2405240005).