The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C....
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit should uphold the FCC’s prison phone order because the interim reforms contained in the order are a “sound exercise of the FCC’s broad discretion to adopt ratemaking rules on an interim…
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basis,” the FCC said in a court brief it posted Tuesday (http://fcc.us/1r45rKl). Inmate calling service provider Securus and other providers are challenging the order, which the D.C. Circuit partially stayed in January (CD Jan 14 p3). The FCC said it was within the law in requiring interstate inmate calling rates be based on the “reasonable costs of providing inmate calling services,” and noted it provided “ample notice” of its intentions. The cost-based rule also doesn’t impose rate-of-return regulation, despite what Securus and other providers say, the FCC said. The commission said it gave sufficient guidance on what costs were “reasonably related” to inmate caller services and was reasonable in finding that site commissions weren’t recoverable through interstate calling rates. The interim hard caps included in the order are also “reasonable and reasonably explained,” as were the interim safe-harbor caps, the FCC said. The D.C. Circuit should also reject the providers’ challenge to the order’s requirement that ancillary charges be cost based, the FCC said. The commission has the authority to issue that requirement, which itself is a “necessary aspect of ensuring just, reasonable, and fair interstate inmate calling rates,” the FCC said. The D.C. Circuit should also reject the providers’ claim that the order “unlawfully infringes” on state and local authorities’ power to manage correctional facilities because the FCC has the authority to “ensure that rates for interstate inmate calling services are just, reasonable, and fair,” the commission said. The order doesn’t “abrogate contracts between inmate calling providers and correctional facilities; it merely regulates the charges that providers may impose on consumers,” the FCC said.