Opinion ID: 3024925
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Preexisting Agreements

Text: Congress enacted § 252 of the Act to establish procedures for state commissions to approve agreements between ILECs and competing telecommunication carriers arrived at through negotiation or arbitration. Section 252(a) requires agreements entered into pursuant to § 251(c)(1)'s duty to negotiate to be submitted to the state commissions for approval. Section 252(a)(1) states: Upon receiving a request for interconnection, services, or network elements pursuant to section 251 of this title, an incumbent local exchange carrier may negotiate and enter into a binding agreement with the requesting telecommunications carrier or carriers without regard to the standards set forth in subsections (b) and (c) of section 251 of this title. The agreement shall include a detailed schedule of itemized charges for interconnection and each service or network element included in the agreement. The agreement, including any interconnection agreement negotiated before February 8, 1996, shall be submitted to the State commission under subsection (e) of this section. 31 The FCC promulgated 47 C.F.R. § 51.303 which requires all interconnection9 agreements, even those that predate the 1996 Act, to be submitted to the state commissions for approval. The rule states, All interconnection agreements between an incumbent LEC and a telecommunications carrier, including those negotiated before February 8, 1996, shall be submitted by the parties to the appropriate state commission for approval . . . . 47 C.F.R. § 51.303(a). The petitioners argue that the rule violates the explicit language of the Act because, while the Act references agreements entered into pursuant to § 251, the rule applies to all agreements, even those entered into years before the Act was passed. The petitioners explain that agreements negotiated and entered into pre-1996 could not have been entered into pursuant to section 251 because § 251 did not exist at that time, and therefore, only agreements that were either negotiated before the Act and formally entered into after the Act, or agreements that were both negotiated and formally entered into after the Act, must be submitted for approval. The respondents contend that the agreement referred to in the third sentence of § 252(a)(1) is not limited to the agreement mentioned in the first and second sentences. The first and second sentences, they argue, refer to agreements reached pursuant to § 251, while the agreement mentioned in the third sentence refers to all, including preAct, agreements. The respondents explain that the term negotiated in the phrase set off by commas in the third sentence means a completed negotiation or, in other words, a negotiation that has resulted in a completed interconnection agreement. We agree with the petitioners that the rule is contrary to the language of the Act. The respondents attempt to isolate the third sentence of §252(a)(1) from the prior two 9 We note that the term interconnection has been defined by the FCC as the physical linking of two networks for the mutual exchange of traffic. First Report and Order ¶ 26. 32 sentences. The FCC concluded that the final sentence of section 252(a)(1), which requires that any interconnection agreement must be submitted to the state commissions, can and should be read to be independent of the prior sentences in section 252(a)(1). First Report and Order ¶ 166. This is not a proper construction because we must not be guided by a single sentence or member of a sentence, but look to the provisions of the whole law, and to its object and policy. United States Nat'l Bank of Oregon v. Independent Ins. Agents, 508 U.S. 439, 455 (1993). The subsection in question begins by making reference to a competitor's request . . . pursuant to section 251. Upon receiving such a request, the competitor and the ILEC may negotiate and enter into a binding agreement without regard for the interconnection and unbundled network element access standards of § 251(b) and (c). The second sentence requires that the agreement so negotiated and entered into contain a detailed schedule of itemized charges for the items covered by the agreement. The third sentence begins with the words, [t]he agreement (which can only mean the same agreement authorized by the first sentence and referred to in the second sentence) and requires that it be submitted to the state commission for approval pursuant to subsection (e). The phrase in the third sentence set off by commas, which reads, including any interconnection agreement negotiated before February 8, 1996, serves as the cosubject of the verb form shall be submitted and explains and defines what else besides the agreement mentioned in the first two sentences of the section must be submitted to the state commission. The what else that must be submitted to the state commission for approval is any interconnection agreement negotiated before February 8, 1996. Congress was aware that many states were already exploring and experimenting with ways to open up local telephone markets to competition, and that telephone carriers were involved with each other in negotiations for those purposes prior to and 33 at the time of the Act's passage. See, e.g., S. REP. NO. 104-23, at 5 (1995). By using the phrase including any interconnection agreement negotiated before February 8, 1996, Congress brought within the sphere of required state commission approval all interconnection agreements entered into after February 8, 1996, including specifically those whose terms were arrived at by negotiation prior to that date but which had not yet been formally entered into by the parties. Because that unique group of interconnection agreements (those that were negotiated before but not yet entered into by February 8, 1996) could not have been agreements prompted or originated by either a request made under the Act or by the duty to negotiate contained in the Act (as the Act was not yet in existence at the time they were being negotiated), they could not be an agreement covered by the first two sentences and the first two words of the third sentence of § 252(a)(1). Nevertheless, because their subject matter, interconnection, was one which the Act was intended to compel, and because they would be entered into after the effective date of the Act, it was logical for Congress to want them subject to the Act's provisions. The use of the statutory language including any interconnection agreement negotiated before February 8, 1996 also eliminated any argument that the agreeing carriers could have made in order to avoid state commission approval that their agreement had been negotiated before the Act's date and, therefore, was not subject to it. We also think it of some significance that Congress intentionally used both the terms negotiate and enter into in the first sentence of § 252(a)(1) but only used the verb negotiated in the third sentence. Had Congress wanted to include all interconnection agreements that had been both negotiated and entered into before the Act's effective date within the scope of the third sentence, all it had to do was use the same words it had used in the first sentence. See Kifer v. Liberty Mut. Ins. Co., 777 F.2d 1325, 1333 n.9 (8th Cir. 1985) ('When the same word or phrase is used in the same section of an act more than once, and the meaning is clear as used in one place, it will be construed to have the same meaning in the next place.') (quoting United States v. Nunez, 573 F.2d 769, 771 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 436 U.S. 930 (1978)). It 34 did not, and its choice not to do so reinforces our conclusion that Congress did not intend to do so. See, e.g., Johnson v. United States, 120 S. Ct. 1795, 1803 (2000) (When Congress means the same consequences, it is natural for Congress to write in like terms.). Across the country there were thousands of interconnection agreements existing between and among ILECs before the Act was passed. In Wisconsin alone the state commission estimated that there were over 3,000 pre-Act agreements which, under the FCC's construction of § 252, would now have to be submitted for approval. See Addendum to Br. of Pet'rs United States Telephone Ass'n et al. at 9. Many of those agreements were between neighboring noncompeting ILECs for the exchange of features and functions. There is no indication that Congress intended the state commissions to go back through years of agreements and approve or disapprove them. We conclude that Congress knew it was already giving the state commissions a huge amount of new work to do in arbitrating and approving the new agreements that would quickly be coming into being by virtue of the substantive provisions of the Act, and that it did not intend to add an even heavier burden by forcing the state commissions to replow old ground. The FCC's construction of the statute is unreasonable. We further find it difficult to square the FCC's interpretation with the recognized presumption against retroactive legislation. By construing the word negotiated in the third sentence to mean negotiated and entered into, the FCC's rule reaches back and requires something that the parties to the preexisting agreement had no reason to expect--required state commission approval under new and different standards which affect the rights the parties had at the time they entered into their agreement. See Landgraf v. USI Film Prods., 511 U.S. 244, 280 (1994). Here again Congress's choice not to use the words entered into in the third sentence tells us that Congress did not intend the retroactive effect the FCC has given to the Act. Absent clear Congressional intent for retroactive effect, there should be none. See id. By making the Act applicable to interconnection agreements that were only negotiated before the Act's 35 effective date (but not yet entered into), Congress gave the parties the option of either proceeding to enter into the negotiated agreement with the knowledge it would have to be submitted to the state commission for approval, or not. In so doing, an unwanted retroactive effect can be avoided, the parties can proceed knowing what the law will be, and the effect of the Act is entirely prospective. We hold that § 252(a)(1) applies to any agreement which was either (1) both negotiated and entered into pursuant to § 251 after the Act went into effect or (2) is an interconnection agreement that was negotiated before, but not yet entered into when, the Act went into effect. Consequently, we vacate rule 51.303.