Opinion ID: 380921
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Standard Applicable to Delays in FCC Decisionmaking

Text: 77 In our view, the entire ratemaking procedure in the 1934 Communications Act revolves around a rule of reason as to how long the FCC may take between the filing of tariff revisions and its final decision. It assumes that rates will be finally decided within a reasonable time encompassing months, occasionally a year or two, but not several years or a decade. The standard of just and reasonable rates is subverted when the delay continues for several years. Ratemaking theories may change; new information may become relevant; one proceeding may have to take account of another. But there must be some reasonably prompt decisionmaking point at which the FCC says: To the best of our knowledge and expertise at this time, the rates are just and reasonable. Perfect, perhaps not, but just and reasonable, yes. That is all the statute requires. 78 Complex regulation must still be credible regulation; the delay at issue here threatens the FCC's credibility and has frustrated AT&T, its competitors, consumers, FCC Commissioners and this court. 91 Many of the same considerations that impel judicial protection of the right to a speedy trial in criminal cases 92 or implementation of civil decrees with all deliberate speed 93 are not inapposite in agency deliberations. 94 Those situations generally involve protection of constitutional rights, but delay in the resolution of administrative proceedings can also deprive regulated entities, their competitors or the public of rights and economic opportunities without the due process the Constitution requires. 95 79 The best must not become the enemy of the good, as it does when the FCC delays making any determination while pursuing the perfect tariff. If past experience is any guide, the FCC can confidently count on another opportunity soon to finetune its decisionmaking when AT&T proposes still newer WATS tariff revisions. It corrupts the statutory scheme to keep in place, for several years, rates the FCC cannot, or perhaps more pertinently will not, deign to call just or unjust, reasonable or unreasonable. 80 The overwhelming importance of reasonably prompt tariff decisionmaking is underscored here by the lack of appropriate alternatives for MCI. It cannot participate in any refund for injured consumers under § 204(a). Other remedies appear inappropriate, except perhaps allowing MCI to purchase WATS for resale, or otherwise requiring AT&T to share WATS. 81 The statute prohibits discrimination in rates and services among customers, 96 thus the denial of MCI's request to prevent AT&T's further expansion of WATS until a final decision is made on lawful rates seems justified on the ground that to do so would unlawfully discriminate among early and late customers; those having previous access to WATS would be preferred over later potential users. 97 Similarly, the FCC's refusal to require AT&T to refile a pre-1974 (or earlier) tariff which was lawful then only because it was not found unlawful, was no abuse of discretion. That remedy is both highly impractical and foreclosed by the mandate of § 205(a) 98 that an FCC rate prescription must be affirmatively found to be just and reasonable. Nader v. FCC, supra. 82