By John Kruzel
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Friday to rule on the legality of a congressionally authorized fund administered by the Federal Communications Commission to expand access to telecommunications services. The U.S. Supreme Court is accused of unlawfully delegating its powers to an independent federal agency.
The justices are under an appeal by the FCC and others of a lower court’s decision assessing whether Congress violated the U.S. Constitution by giving the FCC the authority to administer the fund. The court is expected to hear arguments in the case and make a ruling by the end of June.
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Congress authorized the FCC in a federal law called the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to operate the Universal Service Fund to promote broad access to services such as telephone and broadband Internet.
All telecommunications companies contribute to the fund, which raises about $9 billion annually. The fund helps expand services to people in rural areas, provides grants to low-income Americans, expands services in Native American tribes and supports schools and libraries.
A group of challengers, including the conservative group Consumers’ Research, have filed lawsuits against the FCC and the U.S. government, arguing that Congress delegated its revenue-raising function to the FCC in violation of the Constitution.
The case concerns the non-delegation doctrine, a legal concept that embraces the view that Congress cannot delegate the legislative powers granted to it under the Constitution to other entities.
The FCC was established by the Communications Act of 1934 as an independent federal agency and is overseen by Congress.
Federal appeals courts have reached a different conclusion on the legal question at issue in this case.
The Supreme Court heard an appeal from the FCC and other litigants against a ruling by the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which found the financing arrangement unconstitutional.
The judges did not hear separate appeals by Consumers’ Research and other stakeholders against lower court rulings that found the funding scheme constitutional.
The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has presided over the actions of federal regulators in a series of rulings in recent years, although those cases did not involve the non-delegation doctrine.
(Reporting by John Kruzel; Editing by Will Dunham)
