December 26, 1996 HUNDT WELCOMES CONGRESSIONAL SUPPORT OF LOCAL COMPETITION PROVISIONS FCC Chairman Reed Hundt today welcomed the amicus brief (or friend of the court) filed in the 8th Circuit by Representative Bliley, Senator Hollings, Senator Stevens, Senator Inouye, Senator Lott and Representative Markey. The brief was filed in support of the rules adopted by the FCC to implement the local competition provisions of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. "It's clear that the top congressional leadership has checked the FCC twice and decided that we've been not naughty but nice," said Hundt. "I think it's a great Christmas present for the country and a tremendous pat on the back for the hard working FCC staff." In this brief the authors write that the arguments made by those petitioning against the FCC rules "reflect several critical misconceptions about the Act and the purposes underlying it." The authors cite several examples including, "Perhaps most fundamentally, petitioners seek to remove the federal Communications Commission (FCC) from any role whatsoever in implementing the Act's provisions requiring that incumbent local exchange carriers (LECs) charge their competitors rates that are 'just reasonable, and nondiscriminatory,' and to leave that critical duty solely to the states. That result would be an extraordinary reversal of a clear Congressional decision." Continuing in a discussion of the jurisdictional dispute, the authors write, "The Act instead expressly contemplates overlapping federal and State participation; it directs the FCC to adopt regulations implementing the requirements, including rate requirements, of [section] 251, while at the same time relying on the States to arbitrate specific agreements between carriers consistent with those regulations and the provisions of the Act." The authors, each of whom played a key role in passage of the 1996 Act, and each of whom was a member of the House- Senate Conference Committee on this legislation, state that "the Act replaces a patchwork of differing State policies with a single overriding national policy." The authors note in this filing that they take no position on the substance of the FCC's rules but the Commission's "overall authority to implement the local competition sections of the Act is plain." -FCC-