Opinion ID: 303378
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Clarity in Agency Standards

Text: 15 After having applied what we conceive is the proper standard for our judicial review of the agency's action, we consider briefly another standard-the standard of clarity in the FCC's Suburban Communities Policy which would give applicants a firm basis for determining what evidence is needed to rebut the presumption, or for making the kind of reasonable prediction of chances for success needed to warrant reasonable business men in making even the investment in planning, market-testing and preparing an application and engaging in a hearing. 16 The court would be remiss in the performance of its supervisory function over agency decision-making, however, if it did not take this opportunity to note that much of the difficulty encountered by the appellant here might have been avoided had the standards governing the Commission's decision to grant or withhold a license to an applicant for a suburban radio station under the Policy Statement been more precisely phrased. To say, as the Board did here, that not only must [an applicant] show that [the needs and interests of the area] will be served but, in addition, he must show that the needs and interests of the specified location are distinguishable from the needs and interests of the central city, and that the 'specific, unsatisfied programming needs' established, will be fulfilled by his proposal, 8 is of little practical assistance to the appellant and others similarly situated who wish to know how different these needs and interests must be to rebut the Commission's Policy Statement. 17 The relevant case law-Jupiter Associates, Inc., 9 Naugatuck Valley Service, Inc., 10 and Monroeville Broadcasting Company 11 -also does little to clarify these standards. For example, Northern Indiana relied on the Review Board statement that: 18 5. The demographic and community survey evidence, together with the testimony of Elizabeth's mayor, Thomas G. Dunn, and former mayor, Steven J. Berick, established clearly that Elizabeth is one of the Nation's major cities and that it has programming needs which are separate and distinct from either Newark or New York. These needs are traceable to the size of the city (107,698 persons), its industrialized nature, the different characteristics of the population, and its prominence as the trading center and seat of Union County (504,255 persons). . . . 12 19 Yet the FCC itself elsewhere observed that this statement in Jupiter Associates, Inc., merely exemplifies the obvious proposition that general data concerning the community are germane to the existence of separate and distinct programming needs. 13 Taken together, the two statements leave the next applicant devoid of any guidelines as to the type and degree of evidence required to rebut the Commission's Policy Statement. 20 This and similar statements in Naugatuck Valley Service, Inc. 14 and Monroeville Broadcasting Company 15 suggest that on the basis of its own murky precedents the Commission could have decided the instant case the opposite way without a violent intellectual wrench, a not very satisfactory state of affairs. We think it incumbent upon the Commission to clarify its standards for implementing its Suburban Communities Policy Statement, if the latter is to serve as a fair and reasonable means for regulating the grant or denial of requests for licenses to operate radio stations in suburban communities. This is put with some diffidence-for our last call for greater clarity 16 only served to bring forth the Statement which is today under attack as to its application, and an attack mounted by appellant here arguing that the Statement produced more confusion than it dispelled. We recognize the problems of gaining uniformity of interpretation when decisions in the first instance are made by different hearing examiners and reviewed by boards whose panel members also vary. But these same problems are faced by U.S. Districts Courts in the same circuit, or multi-judge District Courts, and to a great extent uniform interpretation is achieved. To identify problems is obviously the first step toward solutions, hence we have pointed out the lack of clarity and resulting difficulty in securing uniformity of application in the FCC standards. 21 Affirmed.