Opinion ID: 164351
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The FTC's Statutory Authority

Text: 69 In case No. 03-6258, the district court held that the FTC lacked statutory authority to enact the do-not-call registry. In the Telemarketing Act, Congress authorized the FTC to prescribe rules prohibiting deceptive telemarketing acts or practices and other abusive telemarketing acts or practices. Pub.L. 103-297, 108 Stat. 1545 at § 3. More specifically, Congress directed the FTC to include a requirement that telemarketers may not undertake a pattern of unsolicited telephone calls which the reasonable consumer would consider coercive or abusive of such consumer's right to privacy. Id. The FTC's conclusion that this language authorized it to enact the national do-not-call registry is entitled to deference under the familiar test outlined in Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, 467 U.S. 837, 842-43, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984). 16 In light of this deference, we conclude that the FTC did have statutory authority to promulgate its do-not-call regulations because the agency's view that the Telemarketing Act authorized it to enact those rules is at least a permissible construction of that statute. 70 Moreover, even if some doubt once existed, Congress erased it through subsequent legislation. See North Haven Bd. of Educ. v. Bell, 456 U.S. 512, 535, 102 S.Ct. 1912, 72 L.Ed.2d 299 (1982) (Where an agency's statutory construction has been fully brought to the attention of the public and the Congress, and the latter has not sought to alter that interpretation although it has amended the statute in other respects, then presumably the legislative intent has been correctly discerned.); Schism v. United States, 316 F.3d 1259, 1289 (Fed.Cir.2002) (Congress may ratify agency conduct `giving the force of law to official action unauthorized when taken.') (citing Swayne & Hoyt v. United States, 300 U.S. 297, 302, 57 S.Ct. 478, 81 L.Ed. 659 (1937)). In the Do-Not-Call Implementation Act, Congress directed the FCC and FTC to maximize consistency between their respective do-not-call rules and authorized the FTC to collect do-not-call registry fees to offset the administrative costs of the regulations. Pub.L. 108-10, 117 Stat. 557 at §§ 2-3. Furthermore, in response to the district court's decision in case No. 03-6258, Congress expressly ratified the FTC's do-not-call regulations. An Act to Ratify the Authority of the Federal Trade Commission to Establish a Do-Not-Call Registry, Pub.L. 108-82, 117 Stat 1006 (2003). The FTC's statutory authority is now unmistakably clear.