Court challenges FCC subsidies for non-delegation doctrine
SCOTUS NEWS
on November 22, 2024
at 5:00 pm
Under FCC’s program telecommunications companies must contribute to a trust fund through which subsidies will be distributed. (Katie Barlow).
The Justices on Friday created the possibility of another major ruling regarding the role of administrative agency and Congress’s power to delegate to these agencies. The court agreed to review a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals of the 5th Circuit, which invalidated portions of a Federal Communications Commission program to improve internet and telephone services in underserved communities. The nondelegation theory is the basis of the case Federal Communications Commission v. Consumers’ Research, along with a similar case granted on Friday, Schools, Health and Libraries Broadband Coalition, v. Consumers’ Research. The Supreme Court hasn’t relied on this doctrine in nearly a hundred years, but conservative lawyers have urged the justices to revive it in recent years. (John Elwood, Kal Golde and other SCOTUSblog writers have discussed the cases in greater detail in their recent articles. In a short order issued by the justices at their private conference on Friday, they agreed to take both cases. They also instructed the parties in the case to address a second question: if the case has become moot, or no longer a controversy, because Consumers’ Research (the advocacy group challenging this program) failed to seek preliminary remedy in the 5th Circuit. The cases will be heard together in March or April next year. A decision is expected to be made by late June or early Jul. This article was originally published on Howe on the Court.
