ATVA: FCC Lacks Authority over National TV Ownership Cap
Congress hasn’t given the FCC any authority over the national TV ownership cap, said the American Television Alliance in a letter filed in docket 17-318 Monday. Congress set the cap at 39% and explicitly removed the new cap from the…
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Commission’s quadrennial review process, ATVA said. “When Congress directs agency action -- whether through codification in a statute or through a direction to change a rule --the agency cannot undo that action unless Congress has authorized it to do so.” The U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down Chevron deference made it clear that “congressional silence is no longer an invitation for regulatory discretion,” the filing said. ATVA said broadcaster arguments that the FCC has authority over the cap are undercut by its filings from 2013, when the FCC was examining doing away with the UHF discount. “Broadcasters say it is obvious that the FCC has broad authority to raise the national cap because Congress failed to ‘enshrine’ it in the statute” but also said it was “obvious that the Commission did not have any authority to change the cap when broadcasters thought the FCC might lower it,” ATVA said.