Pai Confident LFA Order 'Will Survive Judicial Review'
A cable local franchise authority order “will survive judicial review," and the FCC “has no plans to reverse that decision” with Republicans in the majority, Chairman Ajit Pai said in letters to Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman and Donald Payne, both…
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D-N.J., released Wednesday. The lawmakers wrote Pai in August urging the FCC to reverse the LFA order because of the “serious risk to funding for” public, educational and government access channels “and damage to state and local governments’ ability to regulate cable operators.” Wins by presidential nominee Joe Biden and other Democrats in Nov. 3 could result in a reversal of the LFA order (see 2009020052). The 2019 order clarified the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal’s 2017 remand that “cable-related, ‘in-kind’ contributions-including PEG-related contributions required by a cable franchise agreement are franchise fees subject to the statutory five percent cap, with limited exceptions as set forth in the statute,” Pai said. He wrote that the 6th Circuit rejected localities’ stay request (see 2003230045), so the order is “now effective.”