Correspondence to the FCC re: preemption of local government as a source of regulation

Thu Jul 24 22:10:24 UTC 2014

For the record, Eric, I'm certain that states can preempt municipalities. The question is can FCC preempt States?
- jra


On July 24, 2014 5:18:26 PM EDT, Eric Brunner-Williams <brunner at nic-naa.net> wrote:
>For those interested, first in my morning's inbox is a letter from 
>Oregon State Senator Bruce Starr (R-15, Hillsboro), and Nevada State 
>Senator Debbie Smith (D-13), President and President-elect, 
>respectively, of the National Conference of State Legislatures to FCC 
>Chairman Thomas Wheeler, expressing their firm conviction as of Tuesday
>
>of this week that states have the constitutional authority to preempt 
>municipalities in the domain of communications infrastructure.
>
>The letter is not a legal memo, so it expresses little of any use. 
>Anyone wanting a copy can probably find it on either the FCC or the
>NCSL 
>websites.
>
>Next is "by hand" of today from Jim Baller, retained by the Electrical 
>Power Board of the City of Chatanooga, to the FCC. It is a 64pp legal 
>memo constituting a "Petition for Removal of Barriers to Broadband 
>Investment and Competition", that is, an argument that Section 706 of 
>the Telecommunication Act of 1996 takes precedence over Tenn. Code Ann.
>
>§ 7-52-601 ("Section 601").
>
>Here is the link:
>https://www.epb.net/downloads/legal/EPB-FCCPetition.pdf
>
>I expect the second correspondence will make more interesting reading.
>
>Eric

-- 
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