Opinion ID: 184452
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Waiver Applicant Petitioners

Text: 129 The waiver applicant petitioners seek review of the FCC's decision, released on January 8, 1993, while the Commission was devising its current LMDS regime, that denied them waivers of the rules that formerly governed use of the spectrum now designated for LMDS. See first NPRM pp 51-53. The rejected waiver applicants filed petitions with the FCC for reconsideration on February 8, 1993. Concurrently, the rejected applicants filed petitions for review with this court. See Brief of Petitioners James L. Melcher, et al., at 3; Order p 385 n.595. On April 15, 1993, this court ordered those latter petitions held in abeyance pending completion of the FCC proceeding. On March 13, 1997, the FCC denied the rejected applicants' petitions for reconsideration. See Order pp 383-406. Many of the rejected applicants did not then file timely new appeals with this court. However, at least two rejected applicants, Celltel Communications Corporation (Celltel) and CT Communications Corporation (CT), who had dismissed their petitions for reconsideration that were before the FCC, filed timely new petitions for review with this court on August 11, 1997. This court consolidated these two petitions into the present case on September 8, 1997. 130 The FCC argues that TeleSTAR, Inc. v. FCC, 888 F.2d 132 (D.C.Cir.1989) (per curiam), and Wade v. FCC, 986 F.2d 1433 (D.C.Cir.1993) (per curiam), establish that the filing of a petition for reconsideration before the FCC makes the challenged FCC order nonfinal, and therefore nonreviewable by this court, as to the petitioning party. 3 The Commission asserts that the rejected waiver applicants' petitions for review before this court should accordingly be dismissed as incurably premature. We agree that the petitions before this court from large numbers of the rejected waiver applicants raise serious prematurity problems. TeleSTAR, Inc. considered the precise question of whether a petition for review, unripe because of the pendency of a request for agency reconsideration, ripens so as to vest this court with jurisdiction once the agency issues its final decision on reconsideration. TeleSTAR, Inc., 888 F.2d at 133. It held that this court does not have jurisdiction to consider the prematurely-filed petition for review, even after the agency rules on the rehearing request. In order to obtain review of a now-final agency order, a new petition for review must be filed. Id. As the court explained: 131 While final agency action can ripen an issue for appellate review, the filing of a challenge to agency action before the agency has issued its decision on reconsideration is incurably premature. We hold therefore that when a petition for review is filed before the challenged action is final and thus ripe for review, subsequent action by the agency on a motion for reconsideration does not ripen the petition for review or secure appellate jurisdiction. To cure the defect, the challenging party must file a new notice of appeal or petition for review from the now-final agency order. We develop this bright line test to discourage the filing of petitions for review until after the agency completes the reconsideration process. If a party determines to seek reconsideration of an agency ruling, it is a pointless waste of judicial energy for the court to process any petition for review before the agency has acted on the request for reconsideration. 132 Id. at 134 (citation omitted); see also Wade, 986 F.2d at 1434 (The danger of wasted judicial effort that attends the simultaneous exercise of judicial and agency jurisdiction arises whether a party seeks agency reconsideration before, simultaneous with, or after filing an appeal or petition for judicial review.) (citation omitted). 133 However, we do reach the merits of the petitions before this court from Celltel and CT, who have presented petitions that were not premature. 134 This court held in Turro v. FCC, 859 F.2d 1498 (D.C.Cir.1988), that: 135 Our standard for reviewing the FCC's denial of a request for waiver of an agency rule is very deferential. As we stated in WAIT Radio v. FCC, 459 F.2d 1203, 1207 (D.C.Cir.), An applicant for waiver faces a high hurdle even at the starting gate. On its appeal to this court, the burden on [the petitioner] is even heavier. It must show that the Commission's reasons for declining to grant the waiver were so insubstantial as to render that denial an abuse of discretion. 136 Id. at 1499 (citations omitted); see also Orange Park Florida T.V., Inc. v. FCC, 811 F.2d 664, 669 (D.C.Cir.1987) ([I]t is elementary that the judiciary may disturb a Commission refusal to waive its rules only in the event of an abuse of discretion.). In Turro, the FCC had concluded that it was preferable to address the policy concerns raised by Turro in a rulemaking proceeding and not in the context of an ad hoc waiver proceeding. Turro, 859 F.2d at 1500. The court found that [t]his decision to proceed by rulemaking is entitled to considerable deference. Id. 137 In this case, the FCC had received hundreds of waiver requests--971 in total--seeking authority to provide point-to-multipoint services on the 28 GHz band, rather than the point-to-point services then-authorized. See first NPRM pp 51-53. The FCC also had pending before it three petitions for rulemaking, two supporting the designation of the 28 GHz band for point-to-multipoint services, and one opposing such a designation. See id. pp 1-13. The Commission denied the waiver requests as a group and proceeded instead with notice and comment rulemaking on the use of the spectrum at issue. As the FCC explained, it had concluded, based on the number of waiver applications and the size of their requests for spectrum space, that granting the waivers would result in a de facto reassignment of the 28 GHz band--a band that other parties wanted to use for different, incompatible purposes. See id. pp 51-53; Order p 388. Moreover, the Commission found that the waivers raised common policy questions, involving both the best use of the 28 GHz band and the additional rules that would be needed to govern new uses of that band, questions that would best be addressed in a rulemaking proceeding. See Order pp 389, 402-04, 406. 138 The FCC's reasoning in this regard was not only rational, but highly sound. The 971 waiver applicants were essentially seeking to use the waiver process as a means of getting the 28 GHz band reassigned. Their petitions raised systemic issues most appropriately considered in a rulemaking proceeding that offered all interested parties the opportunity to comment and gave the agency the opportunity to proceed in a more thorough and fair manner. See National Small Shipments Traffic Conference, Inc. v. ICC, 725 F.2d 1442, 1447-48 (D.C.Cir.1984) (Notice-and-comment procedures ... are especially suited to determining legislative facts and policy of general, prospective applicability.). 139 Moreover, the FCC has adequately distinguished its earlier decision, in January 1991, to grant a waiver permitting Hye Crest Management, Inc. to provide point-to-multipoint service on the 28 GHz band. When Hye Crest applied for a waiver, it was the only such applicant. Its proposal was unique and untried. The FCC determined that, under the circumstances of this proceeding, a formal rulemaking to consider changing the designation of the 28 GHz band was premature and that a waiver should be granted as the most efficient way to introduce point-to-multipoint service into New York City (the area in which Hye Crest sought to operate). In re Application of Hye Crest Management, Inc., 6 F.C.C.R. 332, at p 18 (released Jan. 18, 1991). The Commission concluded that grant of the waiver request does not establish a precedent that will ultimately lead to the de facto reallocation of the 28 GHz band and stated that it [did] not anticipate that our action today will result in an onslaught of waiver requests. Id. p 19. The FCC also observed that [s]hould the proposal prove to be a success and the public benefits anticipated become a reality, a general investigation into alternate uses of the 28 GHz band would then be appropriate for consideration. Id. p 18. In contrast, by the time that the FCC acted on the instant waiver applications, a number of manufacturers had begun developing equipment to offer point-to-multipoint services on the 28 GHz band and the agency had received almost a thousand requests for waivers to use the band for that purpose--so many that granting them all would have amounted to a de facto reallocation of the 28 GHz band. First NPRM pp 51-53. To be sure, some of those rejected waiver applicants had filed their applications for waiver as early as 1991, in the early days of what was to become a deluge of requests. But this court has held that the filing of a waiver application does not create a legal interest that restricts the discretion vested in the FCC or compels the agency to review the request as if no time had passed or circumstances changed since the moment the request was filed. See Chadmoore Communications, Inc. v. FCC, 113 F.3d 235, 241 (D.C.Cir.1997) (citing Hispanic Information & Telecommunications Network, Inc. v. FCC, 865 F.2d 1289, 1294-95 (D.C.Cir.1989); Schraier v. Hickel, 419 F.2d 663, 667 (D.C.Cir.1969)). By the time the FCC acted in this case, the circumstances that the FCC had expressly believed would not develop when it granted Hye Crest's waiver had in fact come to pass, so that the agency's reasons for granting the earlier waiver no longer applied.