Opinion ID: 421797
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Extension Order

Text: 31 The FCC's Extension Order, which continued the ENFIA Agreement into Phase II and determined a value for Factor P of fifty-five percent, was issued on April 14, 1982. The ENFIA Agreement, the FCC observed, conditioned such a decision on the Commission's determination that extension was in the public interest. Under the FCC's interpretation of the ENFIA Agreement, [t]his question relates to the usefulness of the agreement and the formula it establishes as an interim mechanism for the determination of certain access costs pending a more permanent resolution of the access charge issue for all interstate services. Extension Order, 90 F.C.C.2d at 9; see Acceptance Order, 71 F.C.C.2d at 447. 32 Some of the OCCs argued that the ENFIA Agreement should not be extended because it is not cost-based. But the FCC determined, on the basis of essentially the same considerations which led [it] to conclude that the public interest would be served by approving the original agreement, [229 U.S.App.D.C. 213] Extension Order, 90 F.C.C.2d at 10, that extension would promote the public interest. An investigation of BSOC 10, the Commission believed, would be wasteful, and an attempt to cure the lack of parity among interstate services before the conclusion of Docket 78-72 would prejudge the result of that proceeding and occasion needless dislocations in the marketplace. Id. at 11. In the FCC's view, [a]t this stage, the public interest is best served by an extension of an arrangement that was originally sanctioned by the parties themselves and that provides a reasonable interim solution to a very complex problem. Id. 33 After reaching this conclusion, the FCC turned to a determination of the level of payment for Phase II. It first acknowledged its obligation to ensure that the charges are reasonable, for both OCCs and local carriers, and that they are nondiscriminatory to the extent that discrimination is discerned and found unjustified. Id. at 14. But, the Commission continued, the question before us in this particular action is a narrow one. Under the terms of both the original agreement and ... the implementing tariff, the Commission is obliged to determine only the level of Factor P .... Id. (footnote omitted). A fifty-five percent discount level, the FCC concluded, would maintain a reasonable balance between the parties, but the Commission made no attempt explicitly to determine that either the fifty-five percent level or the ultimate rate produced by the ENFIA formula was in the public interest.