ASupremeListens arguments on Wednesday in a major legal struggle for $ 8 billion a year on which the federal government spendsSubscribe services over the phone and the InternetIn schools, libraries and rural areas, in a new test of the federal regulatory power.
Judges are considering the appellantresolutionthat struck as unconstitutional Universal Service Fund, Tax, which has been added to phone accounts for almost 30 years.
Tens of millions of Americans have used programs that receive money from the fund and eliminating it, “lead to serious violations,” writes lawyers for telecommunications companies.
Federal Communications CommissionCollects money from telecommunications providers, which then transfer the cost to their customers.
Conservative propaganda group, consumer studies, challenged practice. Earlier, the judges denied two appeals from consumer research after federal appeal courts supported the program. But the full 5th Appeal Court of the United States, among the most conservative in the country, ruled 9-7 that the funding method is unconstitutional.
In the 5th scheme, Congress gave too much FCC powers, and the agency in turn gave way too much power or administrator.
The last time the Supreme Court appealed to what is known as a doctrine, which is not a delegation, chose the federal law in 1935. But several conservative judges suggested that they were open to inhale a new life into a legal doctrine.
The court led by the Conservatives has also joined the federal agencies in recent years. Last year’s trialcanceled the 40-year-old businessThis has been used thousands of times to uphold federal rules. In 2022, the court ruled that Congress should act with specifics before agencies could apply“Main Questions”,The ruling that restricted the ability of the environmental protection agency to fight climate change.
The Trump administration, which has aggressively moved to the reduction of administrative agencies in other fields, defends the FCC program. The appeal was originally submitted by the Biden administration.
“No congressional conference at the FCC, dependence on the FCC administrator, nor the combination of two violate the Constitution,” said Sarah Harris in a short court.
Consumer studies call the “Nightmare Scell” situation, in which Congress has not established restrictions in how much FCC can collect to finance the program. “It is projected that the USF tax rate increased. It was less than 4% in 1998, but is now approaching 37%,” the group lawyers writes.
They said there was a simple correction: Congress could match the money on the program or at least set the maximum rate.
But last year Congress released funding for the Internet Subsidia program,Available Connection ProgramAnd the FCC moved to fill the space by providing money from the program by email, one of the multi -funded Universal Service Fund.
Congress created a universal service fund within the framework of the 1996 telecommunications industry, aimed at promoting competition and elimination of monopolies. Subsidies for rural and low revenue were intended to keep the services by phone and the Internet available.
The decision is expected by the end of June.
Originally this story was presented on Fortune.com
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2025-03-26 09:57:00
Mark Sherman, The Associated Press
