Opinion ID: 546880
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Jurisdictional Arguments

Text: 11 Petitioners raise almost exactly the same issues and arguments that were considered by the Commission at the time of the elimination of the anti-trafficking policy, prompting the Commission to argue that the current petition is merely an attempt to circumvent the statutory sixty-day limitation on petitions for review of agency action. See 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2344 (1988). 12 A review of the 1982 decision reveals that Citizens Communications Center, one of the petitioning parties in that rulemaking, raised the same argument that UCC and ACT now make, namely, that the profit factor motivating traffickers make them per se incapable of acting in the public interest because, among other things, [public interest] programming has a negligible or even an inverse relationship to profit. Amendment of Section 73.3597, 52 Rad.Reg. 2d (P & F) at 1085 (internal quotes omitted); see Petition for Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, at 3-4 (Aug. 14, 1986); Petitioners' Brief at 10, 24-25. Petitioners simply disagree with the Commission's conclusion in its 1982 decision that speculators may in fact serve the public interest by infusing new capital and ideas into ailing stations, making them more re sponsive to their audiences. 52 Rad.Reg. 2d (P & F) at 1088. 13 Petitioners argue, nonetheless, that changed circumstances now warrant a new review of the 1982 decision. In Geller v. FCC, 610 F.2d 973 (D.C.Cir.1979), we recognized that the occurrence of a significant intervening event could fatally undermine[ ] the Commission's public-interest justification for the regulations in question [and yet] not mature until long after completion of the administrative proceeding from whence they emanated. Id. at 978 n. 38. 14 The Commission reads Geller as standing for the proposition that any time a challenge is made to the continuing validity of a Commission determination, there must be an allegation of something directly undermining the previous conclusion's reasoning, or the court is required to dismiss the case. In Geller, however, we noted that 15 the period statutorily prescribed for judicial review of an administrative order governs only direct review of that order. Geller's petition in this court is for review, not of the 1972 order promulgating the contested rules, but of the 1976 order refusing to reexamine their continuing validity. 16 Id. at 978 (footnote omitted); see also Functional Music, Inc. v. FCC, 274 F.2d 543, 546 (D.C.Cir.1958), cert. denied, 361 U.S. 813, 80 S.Ct. 50, 4 L.Ed.2d 60 (1959). Here, it is clear that regardless of the substance of the arguments that petitioners raise, the order they petition us to review is not the 1982 order promulgating the contested rules, or the 1985 order denying reconsideration of the change, but rather the 1989 order denying reconsideration on petitioners' application for a new rulemaking. While petitions that are wholly repetitive might be treated in a summary manner, see 47 C.F.R. Sec. 1.401(e) (1989), the argument that this petition is untimely because of 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2344 must fail.
17 The Commission argues that the issues raised in this petition are not ripe for judicial review under the two-prong test established by the Supreme Court in Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U.S. 136, 148-49, 87 S.Ct. 1507, 1515-16, 18 L.Ed.2d 681 (1967). In applying that test, we first determine whether the agency action is sufficiently final so that we would have no interest in postponing review until the issues are more concrete. Midwestern Gas Transmission Co. v. FERC, 589 F.2d 603, 618 (D.C.Cir.1978). Next, if we lean toward postponement, we must consider whether there are immediate impacts so harmful to the petitioners that present consideration is warranted. Id. 18 The Commission contends that all we have on the record is petitioners' speculation that the rapid turnover in ownership permitted by the new policy will encourage licensees to pursue profits at the expense of their obligations to the public. As petitioners have not given one example of such a consequence, the FCC argues that the court should wait until it actually grants a license that petitioners feel not to be in the public interest so that a concrete issue may be presented for adjudication. Petitioners, on the other hand, maintain that this case involves only the resolution of the legal question of whether the Commission can lawfully fail to reinstate the anti-trafficking rule in light of the evidence presented of trafficking. They argue that because resolution of this question would not be rendered more concrete by further factual development, adjudication at this time is proper. See Better Gov't Ass'n v. Department of State, 780 F.2d 86, 92 (D.C.Cir.1986). 19 We conclude that the issues raised in this petition are ripe for judicial review. In Better Gov't Ass'n, we considered whether a claim that Justice Department guidelines for waiver of search and copying fees violated the Freedom of Information Act was ripe for judicial review. In deciding that it was, we noted that resolution of the question required an analysis of FOIA and its construction by relevant case law. This, we determined, was a purely legal question presumptively suitable for judicial review. Id. at 92-93. Second, we found that the agency action had taken its final form, even though the petitioners were challenging the validity of the guidelines rather than waiting for their application to a particular case. Id. at 93. Similarly, in the instant case, the only question with which we are presented is whether the Commission must adopt an anti-trafficking policy and a presumption that the transfer of a broadcast license in less than three years is contrary to the public interest. We are not asked to consider the validity of any particular transfer, and our resolution of the issue therefore does not require the development of a more complete factual record.