SES, Inmarsat and Telesat urged the FCC not to use...
SES, Inmarsat and Telesat urged the FCC not to use the relative number of full-time equivalent employees to allocate regulatory fee responsibility. This approach would create an unfair fee structure because “it fails to take into account the significant number…
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of commission personnel outside the four core bureaus whose work is solely or primarily focused on a specific group of fee payers,” they said in an ex parte filing in docket 12-201 (http://bit.ly/Y59Ct5). The filing recounted meetings last week with staff from the International and Enforcement bureaus and the Office of Managing Director. They opposed Intelsat’s suggestion that non-U.S.-licensed satellite operators serving the U.S. market should pay regulatory and application fees (http://bit.ly/Yea6Mr). Foreign-licensed spacecraft, once granted U.S. market access, “do not impose significant burdens on commission resources for functions that regulatory fees were intended to cover,” the satellite companies said. Exemption of foreign-licensed satellites from regulatory fees “is also consistent with the commission’s decision not to require the ‘re-licensing’ of foreign-licensed satellites.” DirecTV stated further that under the Communications Act and the Administrative Procedure Act, changes to fee categories “must reflect changes in law and regulation, and must correspond with the number of full time employees performing specified regulatory functions” for particular classes of payers, it said in an ex parte filing about a meeting with Enforcement Bureau and OMD staff (http://bit.ly/16myX5c).