Opinion ID: 185703
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Meaning of Necessary in Section 202(h)

Text: The Commission argues that the decision should be modified to reject the argument advanced by Time Warner thatSection 202(h) [of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Pub.L. No. 104-104, 110 Stat. 56] requires the Commission toapply a higher standard than 'continues to serve the publicinterest' in considering whether to retain rules covered bythat provision. In the alternative, the Commission urges thecourt to delete a single paragraph of the opinion and therebyto leave to another day when it is likely that the Commissionwill have addressed the question and all parties will havebriefed the issue whether necessary in s 202(h) meansindispensable or merely useful. The paragraph at issuereads as follows: Next, Time Warner argues that the Commission ap- plied too lenient a standard when it concluded only that the CBCO Rule continues to serve the public interest, 1998 Report p 102, and not that it was necessary in the public interest. Again the Commission is silent, but this time we agree with Time Warner; the Commission appears to have applied too low a standard. The statute is __________  Section 202(h) provides: The Commission shall review its rules adopted pursuant to this section and all of its ownership rules biennially as part of its regulatory reform review under section 11 of the Communications Act of 1934 and shall determine whether any of such rules are necessary in the public interest as the result of competition. The Commission shall repeal or modify any regulation it determines to be no longer in the public interest. clear that a regulation should be retained only insofar as it is necessary in, not merely consonant with, the public interest. Fox Television Stations, 280 F.3d at 1050. The intervenors,like the Commission, ask the court to reject Time Warner'sargument that necessary in the public interest means morethan in the public interest. They do not, however, join inthe Commission's alternative request that the court merelydelete the subject paragraph. In support of its petition, the Commission notes that thecourt's discussion of the meaning of necessary in the publicinterest was not essential to our decision to remand theNTSO Rule and to vacate the CBCO Rule. Further, theCommission points out that the argument raised by TimeWarner was not fully briefed by the parties. Finally, theCommission argues that the court erred insofar as it construed s 202(h) to impose a standard of true necessity ratherthan mere utility. In this vein the Commission presentsthree arguments, in which the intervenors join, for readingnecessary in the public interest to mean the same thing asin the public interest. The Commission first points out that the word necessaryappears in sections 4(i), 201(b), and 303(r) of the Communications Act -- which sections authorize the Commission topromulgate regulations when necessary -- and the SupremeCourt and this court have interpreted necessary in thosesections to mean useful rather than indispensable. See Nat'lBroad. Co. v. United States, 319 U.S. 190, 225 (1943); FCC v.Nat'l Citizens Comm. for Broad., 436 U.S. 775, 796 (1978); Mobile Communications Corp. v. FCC, 77 F.3d 1399, 1404,1406 (D.C. Cir. 1996). Second, the Commission argues thatconstruing necessary in s 202(h) to mean more than useful is anomalous because it holds the Commission to ahigher standard in deciding whether to retain an existingrule in a biennial review proceeding than in deciding whetherto adopt a rule in the first place. Finally, the Commissioncontends that the text of s 202(h) itself equates necessary inthe public interest with in the public interest. The petitioners, in opposition to rehearing, contend that thecourt correctly interpreted necessary in the public interestto mean more than in the public interest. They argue thatdoing so gives necessary the same meaning it has in otherprovisions of the 1996 Act, see, e.g., GTE Service Corp. v.FCC, 205 F.3d 416 (D.C. Cir. 2000) (interpreting necessaryin s 251(c)(6) -- collocation of equipment necessary forinterconnection -- to mean indispensable), whereas theCommission improperly relies upon provisions that were partof the original Communications Act of 1934, the purpose ofwhich was to institute regulation rather than deregulation. The petitioners also argue that interpreting necessary tomean merely useful would render s 202(h) a virtual nullity and that it makes sense to apply a lower standard to theCommission's necessarily predictive decision to promulgate arule than to its decision to retain the rule in the light ofexperience. Finally, the petitioners argue that because thearguments [the Commission] now make[s] were never raisedbefore, the court must decline to reopen the matter. Thepetitioners make no retort, however, to the Commission'sassertion that interpreting necessary in the public interestto mean something more than in the public interest was notessential to the court's decision. We agree with the Commission that the subject paragraphis itself not necessary to the opinion and should be modified. The court's decision did not turn at all upon interpretingnecessary in the public interest to mean more than in thepublic interest: It was clear the Commission failed to justifythe NTSO and the CBCO Rules under either standard. Moreover, as the Commission points out, the question was notfully briefed by the parties. Among the petitioners, onlyTime Warner raised the argument, and then in only onesentence; the Commission and intervenors failed to addressTime Warner's one sentence; and the petitioners in reply didnot make anything of the Commission's and the intervenors'omission. In these circumstances we think it better to leaveunresolved precisely what s 202(h) means when it instructsthe Commission first to determine whether a rule is necessary in the public interest but then to repeal or modify the rule if it is simply no longer in the public interest. Thus,we decline the Commission's and the intervenors' request thatwe interpret necessary in their favor at this time, and weaccept the Commission's alternative invitation to modify theopinion in order to leave this question open. As for the petitioners' observation that this court ordinarilydeems an argument raised for the first time in a petition forrehearing to have been waived, see, e.g., Keating v. FERC,927 F.2d 616, 625 (1991), our practice is in fact more practicalthan rigid. Thus, in Benavides v. DEA, 976 F.2d 751 (D.C.Cir. 1992), where the Government had failed to advance anargument against the statutory interpretation adopted by thecourt until it filed a petition for rehearing, we grantedrehearing and held that we need not decide between thecompeting statutory interpretations. Id. at 753. There, ashere, the choice between two interpretations was unnecessaryto the outcome of the case at hand but might have had illconsidered implications for future cases. Id.