US Supreme Court upholds state ban on muni utility telecom plans

US Supreme Court upholds state ban on muni utility telecom plans

Washington (Platts)--24Mar2004

The Supreme Court Wednesday upheld Missouri's authority to ban municipal utilities from offering telecommunications service. The 8-1 decision means states can ban munis from offering telecom services and about a dozen states have such bans in place. Although the Telecommunications Act of 1996 authorizes pre-emption of state law "prohibiting the ability of any entity" to provide telecom services, the court ruled that Congress did not intend to include municipalities in the term "any entity." The order overturns a decision by the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, which rejected Missouri's ban after the Federal Communications Commission said it lacked jurisdiction to pre-empt state requirements under the Telecommunications Act. "We think that the strange and indeterminate results of using federal pre-emption to free public entities from state or local limitations is the key to understanding that Congress used 'any entity' with a limited reference to any private entity when it cast the pre-emption net," the court said.