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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 181 / Wednesday, September 22, 2021 / Rules and Regulations C. Congressional Review Act
FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS
COMMISSION
47 CFR Part 1
MD Docket No. 21190; FCC 2198; FRS
46814

Assessment and Collection of Regulatory Fees for Fiscal Year 2021
Federal Communications Commission.
ACTION: Final rule.
AGENCY:

In this document, the Commission revises its Schedule of Regulatory Fees to recover an amount of $374,000,000 that Congress has required the Commission to collect for fiscal year 2021. Section 9 of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, provides for the annual assessment and collection of regulatory fees under respectively.
DATES: Effective September 22, 2021. To avoid penalties and interest, regulatory fees should be paid by the due date of September 24, 2021.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Roland Helvajian, Office of Managing Director at 202 4180444.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This is a summary of the Commissions Report and Order, FCC 2198, MD Docket No.
21190, adopted on August 25, 2021
and released on August 26, 2020. The full text of this document is available for public inspection by downloading the text from the Commissions website at http transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/
Daily_Business/2017/db0906/FCC-17111A1.pdf.
SUMMARY:

I. Administrative Matters A. Final Regulatory Flexibility Analysis 1. As required by the Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980 RFA, the Commission has prepared a Final Regulatory Flexibility Analysis FRFA
relating to this Report and Order. The FRFA is located at the end of this document.
B. Final Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 Analysis 2. This document does not contain new or modified information collection requirements subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 PRA, Public Law 10413. In addition, therefore, it does not contain any new or modified information collection burden for small business concerns with fewer than 25
employees, pursuant to the Small Business Paperwork Relief Act of 2002, Public Law 107198, see 44 U.S.C.
3506c4.

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2. The Commission has determined, and the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget, concurs that these rules are non-major under the Congressional Review Act, 5
U.S.C. 8042. The Commission will send a copy of this Report & Order to Congress and the Government Accountability Office pursuant to 5
U.S.C. 801a1A.
3. In this Report and Order, we adopt a schedule to collect the $374,000,000
in congressionally required regulatory fees for fiscal year FY 2021. The regulatory fees for all payors are due on September 24, 2021.
4. This Report and Order addresses the issues that were raised in the FY
2021 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking including: i The use of non-geographic numbers in the calculation of the number of subscribers for each commercial mobile radio service CMRS provider; ii ending our phasein of direct broadcast satellite DBS
regulatory fees, and have the Media Bureau-based DBS regulatory fee category to be in the same fee category as cable television and internet Protocol Television IPTV; iii continuing to assess regulatory fees for full service broadcast television on populationbased methodology that we used for FY
2020, including changes that we adopted previously for stations in Puerto Rico; iv apportioning NGSO
regulatory fees between the new NGSO
fee subcategories for less complex NGSO systems and other NGSO
systems, taking into account the relative benefits provided to them from our oversight and regulatory activities; and v extending our streamlined waiver provisions adopted in FY 2020 for FY
2021. These issues are discussed below.
II. Report and Order A. Issues Raised by Commenters 5. Broadband DATA Act Implementation. As part of our FY 2021
appropriation, Congress directed the Commission to assess and collect $374
million in regulatory fees, of which $33
million is to be made available for implementing the Broadband DATA
Act. Among other things, the Broadband DATA Act requires the Commission to collect standardized, granular data on the availability and quality of both fixed and mobile broadband internet access services, to create a common dataset of all locations where fixed broadband internet access service can be installed the Fabric, and to create publicly available coverage maps.

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6. Several commenters representing the broadcast industry object to the assessment on broadcasters of any portion of the $33 million designated by Congress to cover the costs of implementation of the Broadband DATA Act as part of the Commissions FY 2021 appropriation. They argue that broadcasters are not regulated by nor do they benefit from implementation of the Broadband DATA Act. Specifically, that these Broadband DATA Act costs are not overhead costs because they pertain only to certain Commission core bureaus and identifiable entities, namely, broadband service providers, that are regulated by and benefit from the Commissions activities implementing the legislation.
7. Therefore, we adjust the Commissions approach to account for the unusual circumstances accompanying the Broadband DATA
Act earmark. While we categorize the costs of implementation of the Broadband DATA Act as indirect costs consistent with our normal methodology, in this limited instance, given the one-time nature and magnitude of the earmark, the statutory text, the legislative history, and the record in this proceeding, we exclude one group of regulateesbroadcasters or Media Services licenseesfrom their share of these indirect costs. While we modify our methodology here with respect to the $33 million earmark, this one-time modification is consistent with the Commissions longstanding goals of implementing a fair, sustainable, and administrable regulatory fee regime.
8. Auction FTEs. Several commenters contend that the Commission should include auctions FTEs in the calculation of indirect and overhead expenses. In other words, excluding Wireless Telecommunications Bureau FTEs who work on auction issues artificially depresses the costs attributable to the wireless industry and, disadvantages Media Bureau regulatees, as the Media Bureau has substantially fewer of its FTEs classified as auction employees.
We find, however, that including auctions FTEs would be inconsistent with section 9 of the Act and therefore decline to accept this proposal. Section 9 of the Communications Act requires the Commission to assess and collect regulatory fees to recover the costs of carrying out the Commissions functions equal to the amount of the Commissions salaries and expenses appropriations each fiscal year.
Auctions FTEs are not included in the calculation of regulatory fees because our methodology excludes all auctionrelated FTEs and their overhead from the regulatory fee calculations. Auctions
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