FOR THE
Argued
No. 00-1458
COMSAT Corporation,
Petitioner
v.
Federal
Communications Commission and
Respondents
PanAmSat Corporation,
Intervenor
On Petition for
Review of an Order of the
Federal
Communications Commission
C. Grey Pash, Jr., Counsel, Federal Communications Commission, argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief were Jane E. Mago, General Counsel, Daniel M. Armstrong, Associate General Counsel, FCC, and Charles A. James, Assistant Attorney General, Catherine G. O'Sullivan and Andrea Limmer, Attorneys, U.S. Department of Justice.
Henry Goldberg
and Joseph A. Godles were on the brief for intervenor. W. Kenneth Ferree entered an appearance.
Before: Sentelle and Rogers, Circuit Judges, and
Williams, Senior Circuit Judge.
Opinion for the
Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge Williams.
Williams, Senior
Circuit Judge: Under § 9 of the Communications
Act of 1934, Congress requires the Federal Communications Commission to
"assess and collect regulatory fees to recover the costs of ...
enforcement activities, policy and rulemaking activities, user information
services, and international activities."
47 U.S.C. § 159(a)(1). In
executing this mandate, the Commission collects fees according to the Schedule
of Regulatory Fees found at 47 C.F.R. § 1.1156.
The statute authorizes the Commission to adjust these fees annually to
reflect changes in operating costs or in the regulatory "services" it
provides. 47 U.S.C. §§ 159(b)(2) &
(3); see also id. § 159(g) (showing
original fee schedule prior to agency amendment).
Until 1995, the
Commission exempted petitioner COMSAT from the § 9 regulatory fees charged to
satellite service providers for each "space station" in
operation. See Report and Order,
Assessment and Collection of Regulatory Fees for Fiscal Year 1995, 10 FCC
COMSAT's
exemption from space station fees naturally inhibited the Commission in fulfilling
its congressional mandate to recover all regulatory costs. See, e.g., COMSAT Corp. v. FCC, 114 F.3d 223,
226 (D.C. Cir. 1997) ("COMSAT I");
see also 1995 Order, 10 FCC Rcd at 13550 p 110 (expressing intention
"to explore other ways to recover the regulatory costs imposed on the
Commission" by COMSAT's activities).
The Commission therefore attempted to institute a special
"signatory fee" for COMSAT in 1996.
COMSAT I, 114 F.3d at 225-26; see
also Report and Order, Assessment and Collection of Regulatory Fees for Fiscal
Year 1996, 11 FCC
In 1998,
PanAmSat, a competitor of COMSAT and intervenor in this case, sought review of
the Commission's exemption of COMSAT from space station fees. See PanAmSat, 198 F.3d at 891-92. We held that the language of § 9 made
"no suggestion that Comsat should be exempt," and that requiring
COMSAT's payment of regulatory fees "would serve § 9's general purpose of
recovering the Commission's costs for its regulatory activities."
In its 2000
Order, citing our decision in PanAmSat and Congress's March 2000 enactment of
the Open Market Reorganization for the Betterment of International Telecommunications
Act ("ORBIT"), Pub L. No. 106-180, 114 Stat. 48 (2000), the
Commission determined that COMSAT was subject to space station fees under § 9. Report and Order, Assessment and Collection
of Regulatory Fees for Fiscal Year 2000, 15 FCC
* * *
We review the
Commission's determination to impose § 9 space station fees on COMSAT under the
familiar standard of Chevron
COMSAT attempts
to limit PanAmSat, characterizing the case as only foreclosing its claims for
"legal immunity" under the Intelsat treaty. COMSAT contends that the scope of § 9 more
generally was not in issue in PanAmSat, and is thus a matter of first
impression. This reading of PanAmSat
strikes us as unconvincing. The language
there addressed the issue of COMSAT's exemption from § 9 space station fees
quite generally, and was not confined to only whether COMSAT had legal immunity
arising from its relationship to Intelsat.
For example, we broadly held that "the statute plainly does not
require--and may not permit--Comsat's exemption from space station regulatory
fees," id. at 895, that "the legislative history's embrace of fees
for satellites 'directly licensed by the Commission under Title III' seems
reasonably to encompass Comsat," id. at 896, and that "the FCC [at
the time] was mistaken in its conclusion that the statute compelled an
exemption for Comsat," id. Indeed,
the PanAmSat opinion referred to the Intelsat treaty only as an aid to
interpreting the statute and its legislative history.
COMSAT is
correct, however, that PanAmSat left open the possibility that there might be
"some ambiguity in the coverage of the 'space station' category in § 9,
such that the Commission might 'permissibly' read the statute as allowing a
Comsat exemption."
In response,
COMSAT first argues that COMSAT I precludes the Commission from recovering
signatory-related costs. But COMSAT I
did not so hold. It stands only for the
narrow proposition that under the procedural requirements of the Communications
Act, the Commission may not impose new fee structures absent a new
"rulemaking or change in law."
COMSAT I, 114 F.3d at 227-28; see
also PanAmSat, 198 F.3d at 894-95.
Nothing in COMSAT I prevents the Commission from recovering its
signatory-related costs through proper application of its existing § 9 fee
structure.
COMSAT next
argues that the Commission's decision is unreasonable because the original
statutory fee schedule lists the "space station category" with a
parenthetical reference that is inapplicable to the licensing of Intelsat
satellites:
Space Station (per operational station in geosynchronous orbit)
(47 C.F.R. Part 25).
47 U.S.C. § 159(g) (emphasis added). Since Intelsat satelites are not regulated
under that section of the regulations, see 2000 Order, 15 FCC Rcd at 14487 p
21, COMSAT argues that it cannot be subject to § 9 space station fees. We disagree.
The Commission views the parenthetical as nothing more than a marker
used by Congress to aid the Commission in understanding the schedule; this is neither precluded by the language nor
unreasonable. See Chevron, 467
Aside from the
question whether the Commission can impose space station fees on COMSAT at all,
COMSAT also challenges the amount charged.
Because it only uses 17% of the transponder capacity of the Intelsat
system, see COMSAT Brief at 54, COMSAT contends that its space station fee
should be prorated accordingly. But we
again cannot find the Commission's rejection of this proposal unreasonable. The Commission has previously rejected suggestions
to assess space station fees "on the number of transponders used rather
than the number of space segments."
2000 Order, 15 FCC Rcd at 14490 p 26 (citing 1995 Order, 10 FCC Rcd at
13550-51 p 111). The Commission has also
noted that assessing fees per satellite is more consistent with the Congress's
original schedule, see 47 U.S.C. § 159(g) (establishing original schedule that
assessed fees "per operational station"), and is apparently less
administratively burdensome on the Commission and regulatees, see 1995 Order,
10 FCC Rcd at 13550-51 p 111. Furthermore,
the Commission has maintained that the costs associated with regulating
satellite systems are reasonably related to the number of operational
satellites. 1995 Order, 10 FCC Rcd at
13550-51 p 111. As COMSAT offers no
evidence demonstrating that regulatory costs are generally more closely related
to the number of transponders than to the number of satellites, we must reject
the request to mandate its proration theory.
See also id. (noting that commenter "provided ... no demonstrable
evidence that the costs of regulating the various satellite systems is [sic]
more closely related to the number of transponders that a satellite carries
than to the total number of operational satellites").
While we reject
COMSAT's proration argument, we do not suggest that the fees imposed on COMSAT
were well-apportioned. Indeed, the $1.6
million in fees assessed to COMSAT seem to bear no relation to the
signatory-related costs that the Commission identified COMSAT as having created
and that it has said it wishes to recover.
Signatory-related costs apparently amounted to only $233,425 in 1996,[1]
and although the record lacks reported figures for 2000, an extrapolation on
the basis of the change in the regular fee per satellite would yield an estimate
for Intelsat signatory-related costs in 2000 of about $442,000, only about a
quarter of the fees actually assessed.[2]
We do not reach this issue, however, because it was not raised on this appeal. Indeed it appears that the Commission was and perhaps remains willing to consider a request for a fee reduction on this ground. It said in the 2000 Order that reductions of fees were "granted on a case-by-case basis" and that COMSAT remains "free to submit such a request." 2000 Order, 15 FCC Rcd at 14490 p 27 (noting that the Commission "express[es] no view in this rulemaking proceeding whether such a reduction in fees should be granted"); see also 47 C.F.R. § 1.1166 (establishing procedures for requesting fee waivers or reductions).
Since § 9 of the
statute as interpreted in PanAmSat is sufficient to justify the Commission's
actions, we need not reach issues raised by the Commission's ancillary reliance
on ORBIT.
* * *
COMSAT's petition
for review is
Denied.
[1] In its 1996 Order, FCC estimated that signatory-related costs amounted to 14.7% of "the costs attributable to space station regulatory oversight ($3,175,850)." 1996 Order, 11 FCC Rcd at 18790 p 45. The signatory-related costs for 1996 were thus $466,850. However, since COMSAT is signatory to two separate international organizations (Intelsat and the International Mobile Satellite Organization), the Commission divided that figure by two. See id. at 18787-88 p 37, 18790 p 45; see also Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Assessment and Collection of Regulatory Fees for Fiscal Year 1996, 11 FCC Rcd 16515, 16528 p 46 (1996) (making a similar signatory-related cost calculation, albeit with slightly lower figures). For reasons not disclosed by the parties, it appears that only fees charged with reference to Intelsat satellites are before us.
[2] According to the 2000 Order, regulatory costs associated with (geosynchronous) space stations in 2000 are estimated at $6,010,513. See 2000 Order at 14532 attachment C. (Here, we use the same figure corresponding to the "Pro-Rated Revenue Requirement" for "Space Stations (Geosynchronous)" as in the 1996 Order.) Assuming that signatory costs remained at 14.7% of total space station regulatory costs as in 1996, see 1996 Order, 15 FCC Rcd at 18790 p 45, signatory costs in 2000 were approximately $883,545. Again, because COMSAT is signatory to two organizations, id., the Commission would presumably divide this figure by two to yield $441,773.