Opinion ID: 303378
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Agency Policy and Judicial Review Standards

Text: 3 The FCC Suburban Communities Policy Statement creates the presumption that an application for a license in a suburban community is in reality an application for a license to serve the adjoining central city area. For an applicant to rebut this presumption, the Commission required that: 4 During the course of an evidentiary hearing to determine, inter alia, whether an applicant will realistically serve his specified community or another, larger community, that applicant will be required to rebut the presumption that will have arisen because of his proposed coverage. Thus, in addition to the usual 307(b) evidence concerning the independence of a suburb from its central city, an applicant will be expected, under our new policy, to adduce evidence at the hearing showing the extent to which he has ascertained that his specified community has separate and distinct programming needs. The parties will then be permitted to show the extent to which that community's needs are being met by existing standard broadcast stations, and the applicant will be expected to show the extent to which his program proposal will meet the specific, unsatisfied programming needs of his specified community. At the same time, although it would not necessarily be determinative, such an applicant would be expected to adduce evidence as to whether the projected sources of advertising revenues within his specified community are adequate to support his proposal as compared with the sources from all other areas. 2 5 The court's role in reviewing the findings of an administrative agency is not so expansive as to constitute a complete review de novo. Rather, as this court recently spelled out in some detail in Greater Boston Television Corporation v. FCC with respect to the scope of its review: 6 It begins at the threshold, with enforcement of the requirement of reasonable procedure, with fair notice and opportunity to the parties to present their case. It continues into examination of the evidence and agency's findings of facts, for the court must be satisfied that the agency's evidentiary fact findings are supported by substantial evidence, and provide rational support for the agency's inferences of ultimate fact. Full allowance must be given not only for the opportunity of the agency, or at least its examiners, to observe the demeanor of the witnesses, but also for the reality that agency matters typically involve a kind of expertise-sometimes technical in a scientific sense, sometimes more a matter of specialization in kinds of regulatory programs. . . . A court does not depart from its proper function when it undertakes a study of the record . . . for this enables the court to penetrate to the underlying decisions of the agency, to satisfy itself that the agency has exercised a reasoned discretion, with reasons that do not deviate from or ignore the ascertainable legislative intent. 3 7 In treating the kind of issue raised by the appeal here, this court likewise observed in Greater Boston that [i]ts supervisory function calls on the court to intervene not merely in case of procedural inadequacies, or bypassing of the mandate in the legislative charter, but more broadly if the court becomes aware, especially from a combination of danger signals, that the agency has not really taken a 'hard look' at the salient problems, and has not genuinely engaged in reasoned decision-making. 4