[TVARC] fees

[John Ellis]

I don't know how many of you picked up on this and how much of a chance
this has of happening, but it looks like someone is trying to ramrod
something thru. We should hear something from the League about this,
because it could certainly kill ham radio as we know it. Although it sounds
ridiculous, in today's political climate, I wouldn't take anything for
granted.



Amateur radio licensees would pay a $50 fee for each amateur radio license
application if the FCC adopts rules it proposed this week. Included in the
FCC’s fee proposal are applications for new licenses, renewal and upgrades
to existing licenses, and vanity call sign requests. Excluded are
applications for administrative updates, such as changes of address, and
annual regulatory fees.

The FCC proposal is contained in a *Notice of Proposed Rulemaking* (*NPRM*
<https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-20-116A1.pdf>) in MD Docket
20-270, which was adopted to implement portions of the “Repack Airwaves
Yielding Better Access for Users of Modern Services Act” of 2018 — the
so-called “*Ray Baum’s Act*
<https://www.congress.gov/115/plaws/publ141/PLAW-115publ141.pdf>.”

The Act requires that the FCC switch from a Congressionally-mandated fee
structure to a cost-based system of assessment. In its *NPRM*, the FCC
proposed application fees for a broad range of services that use the FCC’s
Universal Licensing System (ULS), including the Amateur Radio Service that
had been excluded by an earlier statute. The 2018 statute excludes the
Amateur Service from annual regulatory fees, but not from application fees.

“[A]pplications for personal licenses are mostly automated and do not have
individualized staff costs for data input or review,” the FCC said in its
*NPRM*. “For these automated processes — new/major modifications, renewal,
and minor modifications — we propose a nominal application fee of $50 due
to automating the processes, routine ULS maintenance, and limited instances
where staff input is required.”

The same $50 fee would apply to all Amateur Service applications, including
those for vanity call signs. “Although there is currently no fee for vanity
call signs in the Amateur Radio Service, we find that such applications
impose similar costs in aggregate on Commission resources as new
applications and therefore propose a $50 fee,” the FCC said.

The FCC is not proposing to charge for administrative updates, such as
mailing address changes for amateur applications, and amateur radio will
remain exempt from annual regulatory fees. “For administrative updates
[and] modifications, which also are highly automated, we find that it is in
the public interest to encourage licensees to update their [own]
information without a charge,” the FCC said.

The FCC also proposes to assess a $50 fee for individuals who want a
printed copy of their license. “The Commission has proposed to eliminate
these services — but to the extent the Commission does not do so, we
propose a fee of $50 to cover the costs of these services,” the FCC said.

The Ray Baum’s Act does not exempt filing fees in the Amateur Radio
Service. The FCC dropped assessment of fees for vanity call signs several
years ago.

Deadlines for comments and reply comments will be determined once the
*NPRM* appears
in the *Federal Register*. File comments by using the FCC’s Electronic
Comment Filing System (*ECFS* <https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filings>), posting
to MD Docket No. 20-270. This docket is already open for accepting comments
even though deadlines have not yet been set.


73,

John, NP2B





-- 

John Ellis         (NP2B)
1149 Mockingbird Lane
The Villages, FL 32163

telephone 352 633-2910
facsimile  352 633-0401
mobile     340 513-4928


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