Federal Communications Commission FCC 15-59
STATEMENT OF
COMMISSIONER AJIT PAI
Re: Assessment and Collection of Regulatory Fees for Fiscal Year 2015, MD Docket No. 15-121; 
Amendment of Part 1 of the Commission’s Rules, MD Docket No. 15-121; Assessment and 
Collection of Regulatory Fees for Fiscal Year 2014, MD Docket No. 14-92.
Each year, the FCC must update its schedule of regulatory fees to “reflect . . . changes in the 
nature of its services”
1
so that regulatory fees reflect the Commission’s current activities and the benefits 
regulated entities receive from those activities.
2
  In 2012, the Government Accountability Office 
evaluated the FCC’s performance of this annual function and told the Commission something that it and 
most regulatees already knew:  Our assessment of regulatory fees lacked “transparency” and was “based 
on obsolete data” from 1998.
3
  Most fundamentally, our fee assessments didn’t reflect the advent of cross-
platform convergence in the communications marketplace—that is, companies from formerly distinct 
niches competing to offer the same services—or the accompanying change to our substantive regulatory 
framework.  Intermodal competitors faced radically different fee requirements based on little more than 
historical accident.  That violates the bedrock principle that similar services should be regulated similarly.
So over the last three years, I’ve welcomed the opportunity to work first with Chairman 
Genachowski, then Chairwoman Clyburn, and now Chairman Wheeler to improve our assessment of 
regulatory fees and carry out the statutory command.  I am pleased with the progress that we’ve been 
making.  In 2013, for example, we updated our data and reassessed regulatory fees accordingly.
4
  This 
year, we begin to correct a long-time imbalance in the treatment of multichannel video programming 
distributors (MVPDs) that exempted two of the nation’s largest MVPDs from contributing to the 
regulatory costs of the Media Bureau because they happened to be satellite operators.
5
  And perhaps next 
year we will reexamine and revise the regulatory fees that broadcasters pay.
6
Of course, some issues are out of our hands.  For example, when we collect too much in 
regulatory fees, we cannot use that excess to offset future assessments.  But Congress can change that.  In 
fact, they’ve already begun to dig into the issue of regulatory fees through the FCC reauthorization 
process.  In the House of Representatives, the Energy and Commerce Committee recently highlighted the 
                                                     
1
See Communications Act § 9(b)(3) (“[T]he Commission shall, by regulation, amend the Schedule of Regulatory 
Fees if the Commission determines that the Schedule requires amendment to comply with the requirements of 
paragraph (1)(A). In making such amendments, the Commission shall add, delete, or reclassify services in the 
Schedule to reflect additions, deletions, or changes in the nature of its services as a consequence of Commission 
rulemaking proceedings or changes in law.”).
2
See Communications Act § 9(b)(1)(A) (“The fees assessed . . . shall . . . be derived by determining the full-time 
equivalent number of employees . . . within the . . . offices of the Commission, adjusted to take into account factors 
that are reasonably related to the benefits provided to the payor of the fee by the Commission’s activities . . . .”).
3
Government Accountability Office, Federal Communications Commission Regulatory Fee Process Needs to be 
Updated, GAO-12-686 (Aug. 2012).
4
See Assessment and Collection of Regulatory Fees for Fiscal Year 2013 et al., MD Docket Nos. 13-140, 12-201, 
08-65, Report and Order, 28 FCC Rcd 12351 (2013).
5
Order at para. 28.  As the Commission noted last year, “DBS providers currently pay less than nine percent of the 
regulatory fees they would be assessed if the Commission . . . required DBS to pay the same rate as cable television 
and IPTV.”  Assessment and Collection of Regulatory Fees for Fiscal Year 2014 et al., MD Docket Nos. 14-92, 13-
140, 12-201, Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, 29 FCC Rcd 10767, 10782, para. 39 
(2014).
6
Order at para. 13.
Federal Communications Commission FCC 15-59
need to reform regulatory fees in draft legislation.
7
  Among other things, that legislation would correct a 
quirk in the law in order to allow application fees (which are intended to offset the FCC’s costs) to offset 
regulatory fees rather than just being deposited in the Treasury as they are now.  And the reauthorization 
effort is bicameral—the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee has held a hearing on 
the topic.
I commend the initiatives at the Commission and in Congress to bring the FCC’s assessment of 
regulatory fees in line with the 21st century communications marketplace.  I stand ready to work further 
with my colleagues and all interested parties to ensure that this goal is met.
                                                     
7
Walden Releases Draft Bill to Reauthorize FCC (Mar. 17, 2015), http://energycommerce.house.gov/press-
release/walden-releases-draft-bill-reauthorize-fcc.