The Federal Communications Commission (FCC or Commission) is concerned that because the U.S. Government faces potential liability under the outer space treaties for damage a U.S.-operated satellite may cause, that the federal government could be presented with a claim for damage caused by that private satellite operator. Therefore, through an August 25 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on orbital debris, the agency is continuing its attempt to require the satellite industry to indemnify the U.S. Government.
The FCC is wrong to pursue this path. First, Congress did not grant it authority to do so. Second, its proposal flies in the face of an obligation the U.S. Government took on knowingly through its treaty powers. The Constitution grants Congress legislative authority and regulatory agencies such as the FCC must wait for a delegation from Congress to exercise it. Perhaps the Supreme Court said it best:, “It is axiomatic that an administrative agency’s power to promulgate legislative regulations is limited to the authority delegated by Congress.”
In response to commenters’ requests for the source of the FCC’s purported indemnification authority, the FCC said:
As noted, Title III of the Act provides for the licensing of radio communications, including satellite communications, only upon a finding that the ‘‘public convenience, interest, or necessity will be served thereby.’’ We consider an applicant’s plan to mitigate orbital debris risks to be a relevant public interest factor in approving an applicant’s space station operations, and the analysis undertaken by the Commission is designed to ensure that space systems reviewed by the Commission have sufficient plans to mitigate orbital debris, consistent with the public interest.
It was a little unclear, but the Commission appears to think that this purported “public interest authority” allows it to require indemnification. There are two problems with this. First, had the Commission quoted the statutory provision in full it would have disclosed that only licensed radio transmissions themselves must serve the public interest. Second, the FCC is attempting to transmogrify its jurisdiction over transmissions into authority to require indemnification.
A thing is itself and not something else. Even assuming the FCC has authority to impose orbital debris requirements on its satellite licensees under its public interest authority–which I do not, but that’s a separate topic–Congressional grant of authority to an agency over one issue does not mean it has authority over another. The FCC’s purported authority to review orbital debris mitigation plans is a different thing than the authority to require satellite operators to indemnify the government.
How is an orbital debris review even arguably the same as indemnification? Is an orbital debris review also the same as mail fraud, coal mining, or fluffy clouds? Under the FCC’s logic, the FCC could start regulating the meat-packing industry because of concerns over bacteria, or composting yard waste over worries about suburban blight. After all, satellites orbit a planet that not only houses the meat packing industry but the suburbs, too. Commenters cited numerous cases where the courts have had to rein in the FCC’s jurisdictional overreach. The FCC addressed none of them.
One clue that orbital debris and indemnification are different things is that the English language has different words for them. Another may be found in the Commercial Space Launch Act, where Congress charges the FAA with licensing rocket launches consistent with safety. In an entirely different section of the same statute, passed years later, Congress required launch operators to obtain liability insurance and proposed a procedure for the U.S. Government to pay for part of any damages launch operators might cause to third parties. This shows us that Congress, at least, thinks insurance, indemnification and safety issues are different things.
If the FCC thinks that it can require government indemnification from satellite operators, will the FCC next decide that launch operators should indemnify the U.S. government? After all, launch operators’ rockets carry transmitters under authorization from the FCC. If the FCC doesn’t need authority from Congress to impose indemnification requirements, does it think it can change a regime that Congress has put in place?
The FCC’s treaty change. The agency appears to think it can change an obligation the United States entered into by treaty. The Constitution says that treaties are the law of the land. As the FCC notes, the United States may have liability exposure under the treaties when it acts as a launching state.* The decision to sign those treaties benefited potential foreign claimants. The decision also benefited the satellite industry because under the treaty definitions of a “launching state,” the United States could be on the hook for damages caused by private satellite operators. The FCC now wants to change the beneficiaries of that law of the land. Without authority from Congress.
The FCC is not the legislature. The FCC then goes on to ask, in effect, why can’t it do what it wants even if Congress hasn’t told it to. Noting the existence of the Commercial Space Launch Act’s clear financial responsibility regime, and the FCC’s own lack of any similar authority, the FCC says:
We seek comment and supporting legal analysis on whether these expressions of legislative intent preclude the adoption of an indemnification requirement for FCC.
The answer to this fundamental question is a simple one: that’s not how our government works. The Constitution states first that the United States has a government of enumerated powers. That means that the government can only do what the the Constitution says it can. Next, the Constitution grants the type of legislative authority that the FCC is trying to exercise to the legislative branch–to Congress. Even though the FCC is an independent agency, it still needs authority from Congress to do whatever it wants to do. As the Supreme Court said, an administrative agency’s power is limited to the authority Congress delegated to it. Accordingly, the FCC must wait on Congress to make the policy call of whether industry should indemnify the government or the government indemnify industry.
(Of course, as a matter of statutory interpretation, the existence of other statutory financial responsibility regimes shows that if Congress wants to require private parties to indemnify the government–or vice versa–it knows how to do so.)
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*I have not assessed the treaties’ liability provisions for whether they are self-executing, but it does not appear to matter. If they are not self-executing, the FCC should have no concerns. If they are, because the FCC is not the legislative branch it lacks the power to change them.
I like the “fluffy clouds” part..