The FCC should ‘reconsider and rescind’ new cable landing license...

in comments filed Thursday. The rules are “unnecessary and otherwise flawed as a matter of law, unworkable at a practical level, and effectively gut the Commission’s submarine cable streamlining rules without any identifiable regulatory benefit,” NASCA said. The commission should reconsider the rules, NASCA said, because (1) the CZMA doesn’t mandate FCC rules for processing cable landing licenses; NOAA has that power and already has CZMA rules to address the issue; (2) cable landing license applicants can’t comply with the FCC rules because the agency “failed to account appropriately for states’ authority to review ‘unlisted activities,'” it said. The Commission rules require applicants to “verify… that no state has sought or received NOAA approval to review the application as an unlisted activity.” But NOAA regulations say “all states retain the authority, subject to NOAA approval, to review unlisted license activities,” and “a number of states have explicitly codified this authority.” Since states can choose to exercise authority, it’s “impossible” to “make definitive determinations” about whether CZMA certifications are required before filing applications, NASCA said; (3) the FCC wrongly called “significant” cable construction and capacity activation delays “minimal.” The Commission defined “minimal” as less than six months, a stretch given the business importance of time to market, NASCA said. The time frame also may be inaccurate, since the FCC failed to consider potential delays, it said. The longer time frame runs counter to 2001 FCC streamlining rules reducing the process to 45 days from 137 to 451 days, and conflicts with the FCC’s “longstanding policy of encouraging investment and infrastructure development in the undersea cable sector”; (4) the FDA CZMA rules are “unworkable” since FCC cable license applications don’t require detailed data required by state CZMA consistency reviews; (5) the FCC rules violate World Trade Organization commitments by the U.S. regarding licensing criteria. WTO requires the U.S. to make publicly available “the period of time normally required to reach a decision concerning application for a license,” impossible since the FCC rules don’t account for delays, it said.