Opinion ID: 2346524
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: State Statutory Authority

Text: The PUC is vested with the exclusive authority to supervise, regulate, and make orders governing the conduct of companies offering    intrastate commerce energy, communication, and transportation services to the public. Section § 39-1-1(c). (Emphasis added.) There is no doubt that VMS is both an intrastate and interstate communication service. See In the Matter of Petition for Emergency Relief and Declaratory Ruling Filed by the Bellsouth Corp., 7 FCCR 1619, 1620 ¶ 7 (FCC Feb. 14, 1992). Indeed, the FCC has established that when a caller reaches a VMS from outside the state, whether the caller is leaving or retrieving messages, the communication is interstate. See id. at ¶ 10. The communication is intrastate only when the caller is in thestate. Although the FCC allows states to regulate mixed interstate and intrastate services as long as the regulation does not impede federal policy, our Legislature very clearly delineated the PUC's power and limited it to only intrastate communication services. In fact, both parties acknowledged at oral argument that VMS has an interstate component. Because it is impossible to separate VMS into intrastate and interstate communication services, see id. at 1622 ¶ 14-15, we are of the opinion that the PUC has no authority under § 39-1-1(c) to regulate VMS, nor are we persuaded that there exists any other state enabling authority that would permit the regulation of an interstate service. Specifically, we conclude that § 39-2-1(a) provides no authority under these circumstances. [5] That section focuses on ratemaking, not resale or the regulation of resale obligations. Even if that section applied to the resale of VMS, the Legislature's limit of the PUC's authority to intrastate communication services in § 39-1-1(c) also limits its authority under § 39-2-1(a) to intrastate services. The Vermont Supreme Court's conclusion that its commission could regulate VMS was based entirely on specific Vermont statutes setting forth broad regulatory authority that is absent in the Rhode Island legislative scheme. Most importantly, the Vermont enactment does not limit its commission, the Public Service Board (PSB), to regulating only intrastate communication. [6] Additionally, the Vermont statutesspecifically and methodically lay out the jurisdiction and authority of the PSB in a way that most obviously includes VMS. [7] Based upon our careful review of Vermont's statutory scheme, we are satisfied that telecommunications service is specifically defined and done so in greater detail than in the act. Furthermore, Vermont's legislature clearly granted the PSB the authority to require that [a] connection be made    and that conversations be transmitted and messages transferred over the connection under such rules and regulations as the board may establish, and [it] may prescribe    tolls and charges   . Vt. Stat. Ann. Tit. 30, § 2701 (2000). We are satisfied that these statutes vest the PSB with broad authority to require Verizon New England to resell at a discounted rate. It is equally clear that the PUC had no such authority. Because we conclude that the PUC exceeded its state authority in requiring Verizon to resell VMS as a telephone service, there is no need to discuss the remaining issues concerning the sufficiency of the record or competitive neutrality of the order.