Opinion ID: 185983
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Timeliness of Challenge to FCC's Statutory Authority to Impose Number Portability

Text: 28 In conjunction with their petition for review of the FCC's decision not to forbear from enforcing the wireless number portability requirement, petitioners also seek to challenge the Commission's statutory authority to impose wireless number portability. See Petitioners' Br. 35-36. We hold that the question of the Commission's statutory authority to impose wireless number portability is not properly before this court. 29 First, petitioners' challenge to the Commission's statutory authority is nothing more than a challenge to the underlying regulations, promulgated in 1996, requiring wireless carriers to provide number portability. See First Report and Order, 11 F.C.C.R. 8352; First Reconsideration Order, 12 F.C.C.R. 7236. The Commission specifically addressed the issue of its authority to require wireless number portability in the First Report and Order, 11 F.C.C.R. at 8433, and in the First Reconsideration Order, 12 F.C.C.R. at 7315-16. Petitioners challenged the Commission's authority to require wireless number portability in their petition for review of the First Report and Order and the First Reconsideration Order, thereby satisfying the statutory requirement that a petition for judicial review of a final order of the Commission must be filed within 60 days after its entry. See 28 U.S.C. § 2344; see also 47 U.S.C. § 402(a). However, petitioners later voluntarily dismissed their petition for review, see Joint Motion for Dismissal, JA 1053-58, and did not refile their petition within the statutory time limit. Petitioners' challenge to the Commission's authority to promulgate the underlying regulations in the instant case is therefore untimely. 30 It does not matter whether the Commission agreed, in settling the case before the Tenth Circuit, not to object to the presentation of the same issues and arguments in any future proceeding involving review of an order concerning wireless number portability. See id. at 1055. The 60-day statutory deadline is jurisdictional. Natural Res. Def. Council v. Nuclear Regulatory Comm'n, 666 F.2d 595, 601-02 (D.C.Cir.1981); see Freeman Eng'g Assocs., Inc. v. FCC, 103 F.3d 169, 177 (D.C.Cir.1997) (An untimely appeal must be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted; emphasis in original). And this court is not bound by any agreement between the parties that purports to abrogate this jurisdictional requirement. 31 We recognize that statutory time limits are not always inviolate. For example, there are at least two notable circumstances in which the court will entertain challenges beyond a statutory time limit to the authority of an agency to promulgate a regulation: (1) following enforcement of the disputed regulation; and (2) following an agency's rejection of a petition to amend or rescind the disputed regulation. See NLRB Union v. FLRA, 834 F.2d 191, 195-97 (D.C.Cir.1987). Neither of those situations is present here. The Commission has not yet enforced the wireless number portability requirement against petitioners. When the November 24, 2003 enforcement date arrives, if the Commission in fact enforces the regulation against petitioners, then petitioners may be able to challenge the underlying regulation as applied to them. But because the 60-day statutory limitations period has expired, petitioners cannot challenge the regulation before it is enforced against them. 32 In short, the challenge to the FCC's authority to impose wireless number portability is untimely. We therefore dismiss this claim.