Court Opinion

ID: 9439321
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 06:31:14.993344+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:26:18.678707
License: Public Domain

KAREN LeCRAFT HENDERSON,
Circuit Judge, concurring:
I believe that section 713 of the Communications Act, 47 U.S.C. § 613, plainly does not authorize the FCC to promulgate video description rules and, for that reason, I fully concur in that portion of the majority opinion that so holds. I do not agree, however, that the video description rules constitute “a direct and significant regulation of program content.” Maj. Op. at 803. I fail to see how video description need consist of anything more than spoken stage directions. If so, video description, at least in my view, does not regulate program content. While I agree that section 1 of the Communications Act, 47 U.S.C. § 151, does not provide the FCC with authority to promulgate the video description rules, it is not because the rules regulate program content; in my view, neither section 1, nor any of the other provisions of the Act the FCC relies on, independently delegates authority that section 713 plainly withholds.