By Lawrence Hurley
WASHINGTON, May 20 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court onMonday ruled that the U.S. Federal Communications Commission hasauthority to try to speed up the process for installing wirelesscommunications towers when local governments have been slow toact.
The case hinged on a federal law requiring state and localgovernments to act on tower-siting applications within a"reasonable period of time."
In a 6-3 vote, the court said that the agency has leeway tointerpret ambiguity in the law about the extent of itsregulatory authority.
The FCC had decided that 90-day and 150-day deadlinesrelating to decisions on cellphone towers were fair, and afederal appeals court upheld its decision.
AT&T Inc., Deutsche Telekom AG's T-MobileUSA Inc. and Verizon Wireless, a venture of VerizonCommunications Inc. and Vodafone Group Plc supported that view.
But Los Angeles, San Antonio, Arlington, Texas, and the NewOrleans city council said the federal government had interferedwith their power to enforce local zoning standards. They arguedthat the court should have exercised its own judgment ratherthan deferred to the FCC.
The case was closely watched by government agencies andthose who are regulated by them because it touched on thequestion of how much deference agencies have to interpret thelaw.
In the majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia said therewere many examples, endorsed by courts, in which federalagencies have made similar decisions about their decision-makingauthority.
"Where Congress has established a clear line, the agencycannot go beyond it," he said. But, "where Congress hasestablished an ambiguous line, the agency can go no further thanthe ambiguity will fairly allow," he added.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote a dissenting opinion airingwhat he described as his "fundamental" disagreement with Scalia.
"A court should not defer to an agency until the courtdecides, on its own, that the agency is entitled to deference,"he said.
The two consolidated cases are City of Arlington v. FederalCommunications Commission and Cable Telecommunications andTechnology v. Federal Communications Commission, U.S. SupremeCourt, Nos. 11-1545 and 11-1547.