Although Staff had argued in its motion that the section 109 reports were necessary for the Commission to carry out its statutory mandate with regard to the Arkansas Universal Service Fund established by Act 77, Alltel argued that the information included in the section 109 report was in direct conflict with the information required by Act 77 and, therefore, not relevant to the universal-service jurisdiction of the Commission. Sections 109 and 110 are included in the general provisions portion of the Arkansas Code that addresses regulation of utilities, generally. Act 77 of 1997, the Telecommunications Regulatory Reform Act, became effective by its emergency clause on February 4, 1997. Instead, it contends that it can still require the annual assessment under sections 109 and 110 because these assessments are needed to recover its cost of administering universal services. The Commission maintains that it has numerous regulatory responsibilities over universal services and that the section 110 assessment funds these responsibilities.
Courts presume that the legislature passes laws with full knowledge of existing laws.
Repeals by implication do transpire when there exists an invincible repugnancy between the earlier and latter statutory provisions. See Board of Trustees v. Stodola , supra. The first rule in considering the meaning of a statute is to construe it just as it reads, giving words their common and usually accepted meaning in common language. See Bryant v. Arkansas Pub. The primary object is to carry out the legislative intent, which is determined primarily from the language of the statute considered in its entirety.