Opinion ID: 186715
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Land Cover

Text: EchoStar first argues the Commission failed to “ensure that [its predictive] model takes into account terrain, building structures, and other land cover variations.” 47 U.S.C. § 339(c)(3). According to EchoStar, the clear import of the statute is that the Congress “intended the ILLR predictive model to give dissimilar predictions based on dissimilarities in land cover”; the Commission has discretion regarding “how to incorporate land cover variations” but not regarding “whether to give them effect.” Therefore, argues EchoStar, the Commission erred when it set the clutter loss factor to zero for VHF channels rather than incorporating in the model a term that would vary with land cover. The Commission makes two counterarguments, of which only the second is grounded in the decisions under review. First, it argues the ILLR model already takes into account land cover variation because the model “was itself derived from empirical observations of signal intensity, and those observations would themselves have reflected some degree of clutter loss.” Because the statute directs the Commission only to ensure the model “takes into account” variations in land cover -- and not specifically to incorporate a variable for land cover -- the Commission argues it has complied with the statute by determining that “the bias [toward under-prediction] present in the existing ILLR model has the effect of accounting for land [cover].” Though some broadcasters made this argument before the Commission, the agency never adopted it. Because we must 9 rely only upon the reasons given by the agency, not “counsel’s post hoc rationalizations for agency action,” we disregard this ground for upholding the orders. Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Ass’n of U.S. v. State Farm Mut. Auto Ins. Co., 463 U.S. 29, 50 (1983) (“It is well established that an agency’s action must be upheld, if at all, on the basis articulated by the agency itself”); Chamber of Commerce of U.S. v. SEC, 412 F.3d 133, 143 (D.C. Cir. 2005). Second, as it did in the rulemaking, the Commission takes the position that any changes it makes to the model must comply with the statutory “command that [it] craft a reliable predictive model.” See 47 U.S.C. § 339(c)(3) (“[T]he Commission shall take all actions necessary ... to develop ... [a] predictive model for reliably and presumptively determining the ability of individual locations to receive signals of [Grade B intensity]”). According to the Commission, EchoStar’s interpretation would “read[] reliability out of the statute” by requiring the Commission to adopt one of the proposed adjustments even though it would reduce the accuracy of the model. Instead, the Commission says it conducted a “thorough analysis” of the adjustments proposed and “made a considered determination that the most accurate ILLR predictions for VHF stations under certain groundcover conditions ... are made by setting the corresponding loss values to zero.” Reconsideration Order, 19 F.C.C. Rcd. 9964, ¶ 13.