Local Governments Challenge FCC’s Use of Direct Final Rule
‘DFR not an appropriate vehicle for such significant change,’ over 85 localities argue.
WASHINGTON, August 11, 2025 – A coalition of cities and counties has urged the Federal Communications Commission to scrap its new fast-tracked rule repeal process, arguing that it shortchanges the public’s right to comment and improperly delegates key decisions to FCC staff.
In comments filed with the FCC Wednesday, local governments – from Boston, Massachusetts; to Los Angeles County, California; to the District of Columbia – challenged the FCC’s new “Direct Final Rule” process adopted in July. Now being used on a monthly basis, the DFR allows the FCC to repeal rules deemed to be “outdated” without the 30-day comment period normally required by the Administrative Procedures Act.
“Without a minimum 30-day comment period, the public will not have enough time to review the proposed changes,” the local governments wrote. Furthermore, “the procedure adopted by the Commission makes it almost inevitable that the FCC will adopt rule changes outside of any APA exceptions.”
Other localities that signed-on in opposition of the FCC’s new DFR process were: Anne Arundel County, Maryland; the city of Eugene, Oregon; Fairfax County, Virginia; the city of Gaithersburg, Maryland; Howard County, Maryland; Montgomery County, Maryland; the city of Ontario, California; the city of Rye, New York; and, the Texas Coalition of Cities for Utility Issues, representing 75 localities in Texas.
Under the APA, an agency can bypass traditional notice-and-comment rulemaking through the “good cause” exception, a provision that allows rules to be changed if they are purely technical or non-controversial; there is an urgent need to act quickly; or delay would cause harm.
This provision has historically been applied very narrowly and the local governments argued that the DFR process is “intended for extremely simple, non-substantive decisions.” They claimed that the FCC’s new procedure “exceeds the appropriate bounds of the APA and lies outside of what can be adopted via a Direct Final Rule.”
The coalition of local governments also requested that the FCC provide more detailed explanations as to why a rule was being changed or deleted.
They charged that “the Commission outlines why these rules should be repealed only in footnotes described only by brief parentheticals. This did not explain the original reason for the rule and any detail on the reasons for its repeal (or change). This places a burden on the public, which must now independently research the reason for an existing rule and the reason for change.”
According to the local governments’ argument, if the FCC were to provide a few sentences summarizing and explaining their rule changes, the FCC would still be able to meet its goal of removing old, unnecessary rules.
“Such explanations will likely permit many more rule changes to go through if members of the public can read and easily understand the rationale for a proposed change, rather than being forced to file an adverse comment to stop the DFR when the reasons and impact are unclear,” the filing states.
The local governments concluded that the FCC was moving too quickly and giving too much decision-making power to its internal staff, without enough transparency or time for public input, risking violation of federal administrative law.
They recommend that the FCC “withdraw the portion of the Direct Final Rule establishing a procedure for adopting DFRs and proceed via notice-and-comment rulemaking instead.”
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