Chris, Joel, Jay, Well done! Jim Jim Weaver, K8JE, Director ARRL Great Lakes Division 5065 Bethany Rd. Mason, OH 45040 E-mail: k8je@arrl.org, Tel.: 513-459-1661 ARRL - The national association for Amateur Radio _____ From: Chris Imlay [mailto:w3kd@aol.com] Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 4:48 PM To: arrl-odv Cc: dhenderson@arrl.org Subject: [arrl-odv:17864] Petition for Writ of Mandamus -Filed Greetings. At the instruction of the President, implementing the direction of the Executive Committee, today we filed the attached Petition for a Writ of Mandamus with the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. This asks the Court to order the FCC to comply with its opinion and mandate in our BPL appeal, now more than a year old. A writ of mandamus commands an agency (or a judge) to do what it is obligated to do as a ministerial matter. Though an extraordinary writ, the FCC is expected to perform more promptly than a year from the Court's order to do what the Court told the FCC to do. This appears a textbook example of a case for issuance of mandamus to an agency. Agency delay is a typical basis for mandamus. What we expect will result from this is that the Commission will ask the Court to hold off on issuing mandamus so that FCC, within a fixed period of time (they typically ask for 90 days) can act on its obligation by itself. The effect is the same: we will have dynamited FCC off top dead center. There is also the possibility that FCC will quick like a bunny release something and moot our Petition, in which case the same effect will have been achieved by our filing. They do that sometimes to save face. President Harrison and I told the FCC (OET) in late April that our Executive Committee had told us to proceed with this if the Commission did not act within a year from the date of the Court's mandate, which was June 13, 2008. They nevertheless refused to provide any timetable for acting on the Court's instruction. I will have more to say about this in my Board report, but we have fired a shot across the FCC's bow here, and it is satisfying to have done so. Thanks to President Harrison, EVP Sumner and especially Director Bellows for helpful edits and assistance on this. The logistics of getting this filed after the Washington Metro collision on Tuesday was "interesting" in the Chinese curse sense of the word. Traffic around here appears similar to that of downtown Bangkok. 73, Chris W3KD Christopher D. Imlay Booth, Freret, Imlay & Tepper. P.C. 14356 Cape May Road Silver Spring, Maryland 20904-6011 (301) 384-5525 telephone (301) 384-6384 facsimile W3KD@ARRL.ORG _____ Save energy, paper and money -- <http://toolbar.aol.com/green/download.html?ncid=emlweusdown00000038> get the Green Toolbar.