Court Opinion

ID: 9445736
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:37:13.830746+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:23.570527
License: Public Domain

WASHINGTON, Circuit Judge
(concurring in the result).
The present situation is a harsh one. The Commission might well have been better advised to ignore the existence of booster stations such as this until the time when it is prepared to deal with them on some basis more equitable than mere repression. But once it decided to take action, if it remained within its statutory authority, its policy decisions must rest on its own doorstep. Federal Communications Commission v. Pottsville Broadcasting Co., 1940, 309 U.S. 134, 144-145, 60 S.Ct. 437, 84 L.Ed. 656; Federal Communications Commission v. WJR, 1949, 337 U.S. 265, 69 S.Ct. 1097, 93 L.Ed. 1353; Coastal Bend Television Co. v. Federal Communications Commission, 1956, 98 U.S.App.D.C. 251, 234 F.2d 686.
This appeal presents two questions: whether the Commission has jurisdiction over the booster station and whether the issuance of a cease and desist order accords with Section 312 of the Act. Since the Commission’s engineers demonstrated that the operation of the booster station caused noticeable interference with the reception of signals originating out-of-state, I agree that the station was forbidden by Section 301 of the Act from operating without a license.1
Turning to the issuance of the cease and desist order, it seems clear that the Commission misconceived its statutory authority. The provisions for the issuance of cease and desist orders were added to the Communications Act in 1952, 66 Stat. 716, to provide the Commission with a sanction less severe than license revocation. See S.Rep. 44, 82nd Cong., 1st Sess. 10 (1951). But, in providing for this remedy, Congress did not *666utilize the same statutory framework which it had used in giving similar power to other agencies. While the procedures for instituting complaints vary among the agencies,2 once a complaint has been issued and a hearing held to investigate an alleged violation of the agency’s statute or rules, it is usually provided that the agency shall issue a cease and desist order if it determines that a violation has occurred.3 But the Federal Communications Commission is instructed to issue such an order if it determines that one “should issue.” While these words standing alone might be thought to give the Commission authority to consider only whether a violation has occurred, comparison of the statute with those governing other agencies indicates that Congress expected the Commission to consider the issuance of an order against a somewhat broader frame of reference; There is no need in this case to determine precisely the limits of the authority which the statute confers upon the Commission,4 for here the Commission concluded that it possessed no authority whatever to determine whether an order “should issue,” once the fact of violation was established.
We need not now determine what effect, if any, the broad policy statement of Section 1 of the Act has on situations such as the present. The Commission has docketed rule-making proceedings to consider, among other things, the operation of booster stations. Whatever decisions may be reached therein regarding the appropriateness of licensing such operations are not the present concern of this court.

. That section provides: “* * .* No person shall use or operate any apparatus for the transmission of energy or communications or signals by radio * * (d) within any State * * * when interference is caused by such use or operation with the transmission of such energy, communications, or signals * * from any place beyond its borders to any place within said State * * * except under and in accordance with this Act and with a license in that behalf granted under the provisions of this Act.”

. Compare 29 U.S.C.A. § 160(b) (1952) (N.L.R.B.) with 49 U.S.C.A. § 13(1) (1952) (I.C.C.). See, generally, Jaife, The Individual Right to Initiate Administrative Process, 25 Iowa L.Rev. 485 (1940).

. See, e. g., 49 U.S.C.A. § 304(c) (1952) (I.C.C.); 49 U.S.C.A. § 642(e) (1952) (C.A.B.); 29 U.S.C.A. § 160(c) (1952) (N.L.R.B.); 15 U.S.C.A. § 45(b) (1952) (F.T.C.).

. It should perhaps be noted that there is here no issue of agency action directed solely against one of a group similarly . situated, cf. C. E. Niehoff & Co. v. Federal Trade Commission, 7 Cir., 1957, 241 F.2d 37; Moog Industries v. Federal Trade Commission, 8 Cir., 238 F.2d 43, certiorari granted, 1957, 353 U.S. 908, 77 S.Ct. 665, 1 L.Ed.2d 662.