FCC v. Prometheus Radio Project

FCC v. Prometheus Radio Project
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued January 19, 2021 Decided April 1, 2021
Full case name	Federal Communications Commission, et al., v. Prometheus Radio Project, et al.
Docket nos.	19-1231 19-1241
Citations	592 U.S. ___ (more)
Argument	Oral argument
Case history
Prior	Prometheus Radio Project v. FCC (Prometheus I) 373 F.3d 372 (3d Cir. 2004), cert. denied 545 U.S. 1123 (2005) Prometheus Radio Project v. FCC (Prometheus II) 652 F.3d 431 (3d Cir. 2011), cert. denied, 567 U.S. 951 (2012) Prometheus Radio Project v. FCC (Prometheus III) 824 F.3d 33 (3d Cir. 2016) Prometheus Radio Project v. FCC (Prometheus IV) 939 F.3d 567 (3d Cir. 2019), cert. accepted 592 U.S. ___ (2020)
Holding
The FCC’s decision to repeal or modify the three ownership rules was not arbitrary and capricious for purposes of the APA
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices Clarence Thomas · Stephen Breyer Samuel Alito · Sonia Sotomayor Elena Kagan · Neil Gorsuch Brett Kavanaugh · Amy Coney Barrett
Case opinions
Majority	Kavanaugh, joined by unanimous
Concurrence	Thomas

Federal Communications Commission v. Prometheus Radio Project, 592 U.S. ___ (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with media ownership rules that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) can set under the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The case dates back to the Third Circuit rulings from 2002 that have blocked FCC decisions to relax media ownership rules related to cross-ownership of newspapers with television and radio broadcast stations. In the present case, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in April 2021 that the FCC had not made arbitrary and capricious rulemaking decisions in the context of the Administrative Procedure Act, nor had the requirement to review minority ownership of stations under Congressional mandate as stated in the Third Circuit's ruling, reversing this last ruling and allowing the FCC to proceed to relax cross-media ownership rules.