Opinion ID: 461571
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the fcc's authority to adopt the complete and

Text: SUFFICIENT STANDARDRD
7 Prior to 1982, stations operating at low power were permitted only to retransmit the signals of high power stations. In 1982, however, the FCC created a new service and authorized LPTV licensees to originate their own programming. 4 Low power licensees are now permitted to broadcast in the gaps between the transmission ranges of existing high power stations. Instead of listing all potential licenses and soliciting applications for discrete areas, the FCC requires LPTV applicants to specify the location and frequency of their proposed signals. Any LPTV application creating interference with a high power station is immediately dismissed. 5 LPTV proposals that the FCC predicts to produce interference with each other are deemed mutually exclusive, and a lottery is conducted to determine which of the applications will be granted. 6 8 In the course of its LPTV rulemaking, the Commission also announced its departure from the acceptability standard generally applicable to broadcast applications--the substantially complete standard 7 --and its adoption of the new, stringent complete and sufficient standard. 8 In so doing, the Commission relied on a statement made by this court in Radio Athens, Inc. (WATH) v. FCC. 9 In that case, this circuit contrasted the public interest in assuring that the limited remaining broadcast facilities go to the best qualified applicant and the FCC's interest in procedures and administrative techniques that enable the Commission to handle its work load efficiently, and with optimum use of limited administrative resources, and suggested: [p]erhaps the Commission can accommodate the various interests by adopting administrative expedients that, for example, explicitly require all applications to be letter-perfect when filed. 10 9 The Commission formally accepted this implicit invitation in its LPTV Report and Order. Explicit reasons were given for the departure from the old substantially complete standard, and the consequences of non-compliance were fully explained: 10 The Commission's limited resources and the large number of low power applications to be processed simply will not permit the staff to coach applicants in correcting defects or omissions in applications that have been filed, as sometimes has been the case in the past. Defective low power applications will be returned summarily, and if they are resubmitted with perfecting amendments, they will be placed at the end of the processing line, unless passage of a cut-off date precludes consideration altogether, in which case the resubmission will be returned. 11 11 The LPTV rulemaking afforded all applicants full notice of the Commission's new fault-free approach and gave cogent reasons for its adoption of a stringent standard.
12 Both Garnerlynn and Salzer contend that the Commission's adoption of the complete and sufficient standard was arbitrary and capricious, 12 arguing that the unprecedented institution of such draconian measures is impermissible. We disagree. 13 In adopting the lottery statute that governs the processing of LPTV applications, 13 Congress stated that it expected the FCC to employ the traditional substantially complete standard unless the agency adopted another standard by rule. 14 As a result, the Commission, well aware of its limited resources and expecting a flood of applications, 15 duly enacted the more exacting application standard. 14 This decision was a reasonable exercise of discretion. Each LPTV application must be screened for objectionable interference with high power stations and with other mutually exclusive low power proposals. The Commission has implemented a computer program that identifies overlaps between the protected transmission ranges of existing and proposed stations and categorizes unacceptable and mutually exclusive applications. Each application directly and indirectly affects numerous others; thus the correction of an application that modifies its engineering data or the reinstatement of a formerly excluded application may require additional computer analysis and delay the processing of all interconnected applications, not simply the one amended. The FCC refers to this circumstance as the daisy-chain phenomenon. 15 The combined effect of limited agency resources, an overwhelming number of applications and the daisy-chain phenomenon 16 clearly justified the adoption of a letter-perfect application standard. Moreover, as noted above, this court had suggested that the Commission might properly do so if explicit notice were given of the new acceptability standard. 17 Neither applicant here asserts that the FCC failed to provide sufficient notice. It is well known that agencies have wide latitude to establish their own procedures, 18 and it cannot be found that the adoption of this rule was either contrary to law or otherwise unreasonable. Accordingly, we reject appellants' argument that the Commission was without authority to enact a letter-perfect standard.