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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 52 / Friday, March 19, 2021 / Rules and Regulations fee exceeds the amount collected.233
Specifically, section 8d2 provides that if in the judgment of the Commission, the cost of collecting an application fee established under this section would exceed the amount collected, the Commission may by rule eliminate such fee. 234 The Commission has no or nominal collection costs for delinquent application fees because we do not consider or grant applications for which application fees are owed unless the fee is paid at the time of filing.235 Thus, we did not propose to create a rule based on section 8d2 of the Communications Act. We did not receive comments on this issue. We conclude that our original analysis that a section 8d2 rule is unnecessary with respect to applications fees remains correct. In the NPRM, we explained the history of the exemptions to our application fees and explained that the revised statutory text did not require any additions to 1.1116 of our rules, which deals with exemptions.236
178. Large and small application fees.
Section 9Ae of the RAY BAUMS Act requires the Commission to allow applicants to pay large application fees in installments and small application fees in advance, for a number of years not to exceed the applicable license term. We sought comment in the NPRM
on how to define large and small fees and how and under what circumstances to implement the requirements of section 9Ae, but received no responses.237 Without comment from interested parties we do not have a record from which to implement the requirements fairly and efficiently, without undue administrative burden or cost, as we aim 233 NPRM

at para. 222; 47 U.S.C. 158d2.
U.S.C. 158d2.
235 85 FR 6559165592 October 15, 2020 at para.
211, and also explaining that collection of fees after a waiver request is denied are too infrequent to be used as a basis upon which to propose section 8d2 rule.
236 85 FR 65591 October 15, 2020 at para. 209
210. In the NPRM, however, we did propose to eliminate 1.1116e4, which provided an exemption for EBS licenses. We have eliminated the EBS exemption. In the NPRM, we also explained that if additional exemptions are sought by commenters, they should provide relevant authority and/or legislative history that would support modifying the limited Congressional list of exemptions. We received various requests to extend the exemptions to include amateur licenses. We explained why amateur licenses do not qualify for any of the existing exemptions and we conclude here for the same reasons that we will not create an exemption for such licenses where none exists in the statute. We have received no other relevant comments on our proposed update to 1.1116.
237 85 FR 65592 October 15, 2020 at para. 214
216.

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to do.238 Accordingly, we will defer consideration of how, and adoption of rules, to implement the section 9Ae requirements until a later time.
179. Administrative rule changes.
Moreover, we expect that as a result of the changes made here and those made previously to implement the RAY
BAUMS Act of 2018 with respect to regulatory fees, some of our Part 1, Subpart G, Schedule of Statutory Charges and Procedures for Payment, may require revision.239 Accordingly, we direct the Office of Managing Director OMD, in consultation with the Offices and Bureaus, to propose such revisions for our consideration.240
In our NPRM, we proposed revisions to such rules, but on review, anticipate that it would be more efficient to adopt any changes to such rules only after we have addressed any internal changes necessary to fully implement the newly adopted schedule. Accordingly, we direct OMD to take such provisions into consideration when reviewing Subpart G.
180. Notice to Congress. The RAY
BAUMs Act of 2018 amended Section 8 of the Communications Act and provided an effective date of October 1, 2018 for such changes.241 Congress envisioned a transition between fees adopted before and after the effective date of the amendments to Section 8.242
In particular, Congress provided that application fees in effect on the day before the effective date of the RAY
BAUMs Act shall remain in effect until such time as the Commission adjusts or amends such fee.243 With this Report and Order, we adopt the new fee 238 85 FR 65592 October 15, 2020 at para. 214, In discussing implementation of the large fee installment payment requirement, we noted our aim to adopt a rule . . . that can be fairly and efficiently administered, without undue administrative burden or cost.
239 In addition, the Commission has been moving for some time toward a paperless environment, including to paperless disbursement and collection of fees. See, e.g., Amendment of Part I of the Commissions Rules, MD Docket No. 1940, Order, 34 FCC Rcd 1506 2019 providing the history of the ongoing transition to electronic payments at the FCC. Toward that end, the Commission has closed and continues to close the lock boxes used for receipt of manual payment of application filing fees. The Commission has and will continue to revise applicable service rules with updated payment instructions as lock boxes are closed.
240 47 CFR 0.231 among other things, OMDs longstanding delegation with respect to fees includes issuing notices proposing amendments or adjustments to the fee schedules established under part 1, subpart G, of this chapter..
241 Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018, Division PRAY BAUMS Act of 2018, Title I, FCC
Reauthorization, Public Law 115141 March 23, 2018.
242 RAY BAUMS Act of 2018, Title I, 103d uncodified provisions entitled Transitional Rules.
243 Id.

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schedule envisioned by Congress.
Accordingly, we find the new schedule satisfies our obligation to establish a new application fee schedule under Section 8a of the Act. In consideration of Congresss direction in the RAY
BAUMs Act, moreover, we conclude that our amended schedule must be submitted to Congress at least 90 days before it becomes effective pursuant to section 9Ab2 of the Communications Act.244 Accordingly, we direct the Office of Managing Director OMD to provide such a notification to Congress upon release of the Report and Order.
181. Rule effective date. As the Commission implements the changes to our application fee schedule, we anticipate that OMD, along with the Bureaus and Offices, may be required to update some of our licensing databases, payment instruction guides and/or adjust administrative internal procedures before we may begin accepting the new fees for certain categories of application fee payors.
Accordingly, we direct the Office of Managing Director, in consultation with the relevant Offices and Bureaus, to cause a notice to be published in the Federal Register announcing when rule changes will become effective, once the relevant databases, guides, and internal procedures have been updated.
182. Motion for extension of time.
Richard Golden filed a motion for an extension of time to file comments in this proceeding, arguing in part that he required time to file a FOIA with the Commission.245 We note that Mr.
Golden filed comments and reply comments in this docket and to our knowledge Mr. Golden has not filed a FOIA request. The NPRM was released on August 26, 2020, and published in the Federal Register on October 15, 2020. The NPRM provided that comments were due 30 days from the date that the NPRM was published in the Federal Register. The Commission had limited time to consider comments, draft and deliberate on this Report and Order to meet the RAY BAUMS Act requirement to establish application fees. In light of these facts, including that Mr. Golden did file comments and reply comments, the motion is denied.
244 The uncodified transitional rules for Applications Fees appear to suggest that changes to the schedule after the effective date of the RAY
BAUMS Act must be either an adjustment under section 8b or an amendment under section 8c.
Our action here is certainly not limited to the adjustments contemplated by section 8b and thus we conclude that the 90-day notice provision in required for amendments under section 8c is appropriate.
245 Motion of Richard Golden to Extend Time to File Comments filed Nov. 8, 2020.

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