FCC Should Stop Letting Interim Rules Become Permanent, O'Rielly Says

up with more considered rules, O’Rielly said. “That means those offering or receiving communications services in the marketplace are forced to adhere to rules based on stale decisions or outdated information.” The FCC’s predictive judgments are afforded deference by the courts, O’Rielly said, but “can endure for years without being revisited.” Such judgments are “typically reexamined only when the agency has a desire to reverse prior decisions,” O’Rielly said. The commission should include a time frame to revisit predictive judgments in its rulemakings, the commissioner said. “The exact duration will depend on the circumstances. However, it is not unreasonable to expect that a predictive judgment not be allowed to last for more than three to five years without affirmative review,” O’Rielly said. A similar solution would also work for interim rules, and prevent them from becoming permanent by default, O’Rielly said. Interim rules have been used by the FCC to “lock in a policy preference for an extensive period of time, free from significant legal challenge,” O’Rielly said. “Any interim rule should be accompanied by a timeframe for completing the final rules. Here, the presumption should be that an interim rule not last for more than 18 months,” he said.