Assessment and Collection of Space and Earth Station Regulatory Fees for Fiscal Year 2024; Review of the Commission's Assessment and Collection of Regulatory Fees for Fiscal Year 2024

<RULE> FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Part 1</CFR> <DEPDOC>[MD Docket No. 24-85; MD Docket No. 24-86; FCC 24-70; FR ID 232437]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Assessment and Collection of Space and Earth Station Regulatory Fees for Fiscal Year 2024; Review of the Commission's Assessment and Collection of Regulatory Fees for Fiscal Year 2024</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Communications Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (Commission or FCC) adopted a new methodology for assessing annual regulatory fees for small satellites and spacecraft, and included space stations that are principally used for Rendezvous & Proximity Operations (RPO) or On-Orbit Servicing (OOS), including Orbit Transfer Vehicles (OTV), in the existing fee category for “small satellites” on an interim basis until the Commission can develop more experience in how these space stations will be regulated. These changes are intended to be effective for fiscal year (FY) 2024. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Effective on September 13, 2024. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Stephen Duall, Space Bureau, at (202) 418-1103 or <E T="03">Stephen.Duall@fcc.gov;</E> Roland Helvajian, Office of the Managing Director, at (202) 418-0444 or <E T="03">Roland.Helvajian@fcc.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This is a summary of the Commission's Report and Order in MD Docket No. 24-85 and MD Docket No. 24-86, FCC 24-70, adopted and released on June 13, 2024 ( <E T="03">Report and Order</E> ). The full text of this document is available at <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-changes-certain-space-station-regulatory-fees-fy-2024.</E> <E T="03">Final Regulatory Flexibility Analysis.</E> The Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980, as amended (RFA), requires that an agency prepare a regulatory flexibility analysis for notice and comment rulemakings, unless the agency certifies that “the rule will not, if promulgated, have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities.” The Commission has prepared an Final Regulatory Flexibility Analysis (FRFA) concerning the potential impact of the proposed rule and policy changes contained in the <E T="03">Report and Order.</E> The FRFA is set forth in the appendix of the FCC Document <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-changes-certain-space-station-regulatory-fees-fy-2024</E> and a summary is included in the Procedural Matters section below. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Synopsis</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Introduction</HD> Pursuant to section 9 of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, (Communications Act or Act), the Commission adopts a methodology change for one category of fee payors and include a type of space station in an existing category on an interim basis. These changes will be effective for the fiscal year 2024 (FY 2024) assessment and collection of regulatory fees. Specifically, the Commission adopts a new methodology for assessing regulatory fees for small satellites and spacecraft licensed under §§ 25.122 and 25.123 of the Commission's rules, and include space stations that are principally used for Rendezvous & Proximity Operations (RPO) or On-Orbit Servicing (OOS), including Orbit Transfer Vehicles (OTV), in the existing fee category for “small satellites” on an interim basis until the Commission can develop more experience in how these space stations will be regulated. The Commission finds that these changes better serve the requirements and purpose of section 9 of the Act, and there is unopposed support in the record for adoption of these two proposals in time for the changes to be effective for FY 2024. The Commission defers action on other proposals made in the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (89 FR 20582, March 25, 2024) that the Commission adopted in March 2024 ( <E T="03">Space and Earth Station Regulatory Fees NPRM</E> ). The Commission is continuing to consider the other proposals in light of the record received on those issues and will decide which, if any, may benefit from further development of the record. It anticipates acting on the remaining proposals in the <E T="03">Space and Earth Station Regulatory Fees NPRM</E> in the near term. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background</HD> Section 9 of the Act obligates the Commission to assess and collect regulatory fees each year in an amount that can reasonably be expected to equal the amount of its annual salaries and expenses (S&E) appropriation. Thus, the Commission has no discretion regarding the total amount to be collected in any given fiscal year. In accordance with the statute, each year the Commission proposes adjustments to the prior fee schedule under section 9(c) to “(A) reflect unexpected increases or decreases in the number of units subject to the payment of such fees; and (B) result in the collection of the amount required” by the Commission's annual appropriation. The Commission will also propose amendments to the fee schedule under section 9(d) “if the Commission determines that the schedule requires amendment so that such fees reflect the full-time equivalent number of employees within the bureaus and 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.” In administering its regulatory fee program, the agency strives to adhere to the goals of ensuring that the program is fair, administrable, and sustainable. The Commission released the <E T="03">Space and Earth Station Regulatory Fees NPRM</E> on March 13, 2024, which initiated an examination and review of regulatory fees for space and earth station payors that are regulated by the new Space Bureau. When the Commission adopted regulatory fees for FY 2023, it noted that it would be the last year for doing so using the nomenclature of certain fee payors being regulated by the International Bureau. The Commission noted that the creation of the Space Bureau and Office of International Affairs could result in changes in the assessment of regulatory fees for space and earth station fee payors resulting from changes in Full Time Equivalents (FTEs), due to increased oversight on various relevant industries. The Commission anticipated that the changes in the industry that resulted in the creation of the Space Bureau would likely also result in changes in the relative FTE burdens between and among space and earth station fee payors. Accordingly, the Commission sought comment in the <E T="03">Space and Earth Station Regulatory Fees NPRM</E> on a range of proposed changes related to the assessment of regulatory fees for space and earth stations under the Commission's existing regulatory fee methodology, as well as under a proposed alternative methodology for assessing space station regulatory fees. The Commission received 16 comments and 17 reply comments in response to the <E T="03">Space and Earth Station Regulatory Fees NPRM</E> . In addition, several entities made presentations to the Commission pursuant to its rules governing ex parte communications. In addition, on June 13, 2024, the Commission released the Second Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in MD Docket No. 24-86 (89 FR 53276, June 25, 2024), seeking comment on the Commission's proposed methodology and regulatory fees for FY 2024 ( <E T="03">FY 2024 Regulatory Fees NPRM</E> ). The <E T="03">FY 2024 Regulatory Fees NPRM</E> does not seek comment again on the methodology for assessing space and earth station regulatory fees; rather, it seeks comment on the proposed regulatory fee rates for space and earth station payors for FY 2024 that were based on the existing methodology used in FY 2023 and also the proposals set forth in the <E T="03">Space and Earth Station Regulatory Fees NPRM</E> . The proposed regulatory fee rates are set forth in appendices A, B, and E of the <E T="03">FY 2024 Regulatory Fees NPRM</E> . <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Discussion</HD> The Commission adopts two proposals made in the <E T="03">Space and Earth Station Regulatory Fees NPRM:</E> amending the methodology for assessing fees for small satellites, and including space stations that are principally used for RPO or OOS, as well as OTVs, in the existing fee category for “small satellites” on an interim basis. Commenters express strong support in the record for adoption of these two proposals, and no comments oppose adoption of these proposals. Accordingly, the Commission adopts these proposals to be effective for FY 2024. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Adoption of New Methodology for Assessing Fees for Small Satellites</HD> The Commission adopts the proposal in the <E T="03">Space and Earth Station Regulatory Fees NPRM</E> to set the regulatory fee for “Space Stations (per license/call sign in non-geostationary orbit) (47 CFR part 25) (Small Satellite)” for FY 2024 at the level set for FY 2023 ($12,215), with annual adjustments thereafter to reflect the percentage change in the FCC appropriation, unit count, and FTE allocation percentage from the previous fiscal year. Comments received in response to the <E T="03">Space and Earth Station Regulatory Fees NPRM</E> support adoption of this proposal, and no party opposes it. As observed in the <E T="03">Space and Earth Station Regulatory Fees NPRM,</E> the small satellite fee rate is currently calculated by taking the average of the calculated fee rate for space stations in the Space Stations (Non-Geostationary Orbit)—Other (“NGSO-Other”) and Space Stations (Non-Geostationary Orbit)—Less Complex (“NGSO-Less Complex”) categories, multiplying this average by 5% (1/20) and rounding it to the nearest $5. The small satellite fee rate is the ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 48k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━