May 24, 2016–Various offices and bureaus of the FCC said today in a public notice that despite delays in posting of electronically filed comments, they “do not find it necessary to grant a broad extension of comment deadlines in pending rulemaking proceedings.” They added that the FCC “expects that already-planned system upgrades to ECFS that are expected in the near future will limit the likelihood of such delays in the future.” 

 The public notice said that the problems with the electronic comment filing system are not preventing parties from filing comments, and that “it appears that the vast majority of comments have been, and will continue to be, entered into ECFS promptly enough to enable the preparation of complete reply comments by the scheduled due dates.  The records remain open in the affected rulemaking proceedings, and to the extent that interested parties wish to inform the Commission of their view of any comments that were subject to delays in posting, they may, of course, employ the usual procedure for filing supplemental comments. The Commission’s rules permit parties to supplement their reply comments to address late-posted pleadings.”

 The offices and bureaus that issued the public notice are the Consumer and Governmental Affairs, International, Media, Public Safety and Homeland Security, Wireline Competition, and Wireless Telecommunications bureaus, and the offices of the Managing Director, and Engineering and Technology. —Lynn Stanton, lynn.stanton@wolterskluwer.com

Courtesy TRDaily