Greetings, Brian. The Administrative Procedure Act permits the FCC to establish time limits on notice and comment rulemaking, and FCC has done that. Section 1.405 of the FCC rules, pertaining to petitions for rule making, provides for the filing of comments ("staements") in support or opposition to a petition, but not later than 30 days after the Petition has been placed on public notice. Any interested person may file a reply to any of those statements but not later than 15 days after the statement is filed. FCC interprets that reply period to run from the end of the time when comments COULD be filed. Then, Section 1.405(c) says "No additional pleadings may be filed unless specifically requested by the Commission or authorized by it. Nor can a late comment or reply comment be considered a permitted ex parte filing. So, the rules don't permit late comments. But yet people do file them all the time, and RM-11708, which went viral late, is a good example of that situation. In the last two decades, FCC has been very, very liberal with notice and comment rulemaking. They are not entitled by their own rules to consider the late-filed comments, but on the other hand they are obligated by the APA to consider all arguments made in comments filed. And they now have an electronic system that does not (although it could) cut off comments that are filed after established dates. I think the philosophy is that their rulemaking processes are best defended against appeals by allowing everyone into the pool, regardless of the timing of the filings. And, I must note, ARRL has used that philosophical flexibility from time to time to its own advantage, by submitting supplemental filings, surrebuttals, etc. I can't think of a situation in recent memory at least, in which we have done that in connection with a bare petition for rule making, but we have pushed the procedural envelope a few times in docket filings. I think there is little to be gained by moving to strike all of the late pleadings, because I don't think FCC will have the gumption to actually strike them. The APA concept is that the public should be heard from and the widest possible airing of the issue is in the public interest. But this proceeding is noteworthy in that the vast majority of the first 900 pleadings timely filed in response to the petition were supportive of it, and the late crop, totalling about 300 (there are now 1200 comments filed in the docket) is largely in opposition. To actually answer your question, my guess, and it is a guess, is that FCC will review them all. It is a long task. We will continue to try to get a sense of where FCC will take this, but we don't know that now. I am not sure they do either. 73, Chris W3KD Christopher D. Imlay Booth, Freret & Imlay, LLC 14356 Cape May Road Silver Spring, Maryland 20904-6011 (301) 384-5525 telephone (301) 384-6384 facsimile W3KD@ARRL.ORG -----Original Message----- From: Brian Mileshosky <n5zgt@swcp.com> To: arrl-odv <arrl-odv@arrl.org> Sent: Sat, May 24, 2014 10:06 am Subject: [arrl-odv:22718] RM-11708 comments Chris – I see that comments are still being posted on FCC’s ECFS regarding RM-11708, the latest having been posted yesterday (23 May). Clearly outside of the established comment periods. How do these impact (or not) FCC’s decision making process? Is FCC permitted to consider them at all, or give them any kind of equivalent weight as those comments/replies received within their own published (and presumably enforced) comment periods? 73, Brian N5ZGT _______________________________________________ arrl-odv mailing list arrl-odv@reflector.arrl.org http://reflector.arrl.org/mailman/listinfo/arrl-odv