Cite as: 512 U. S. 218 (1994)
Opinion of the Court
mational tariffs would be a phase-in of even more rigorous requirements. AT&T, on the other hand, claims that Congress has manifested agreement with its position in the recent amendment of 47 U. S. C. § 332(c)(1)(A) that gives the Commission authority to limit the tariff-filing requirement for commercial mobile carriers—authority that would be unnecessary if the Commission's view of § 203 is correct. At most, these conflicting arguments indicate that Congress was aware of the decade-long tug of war between the Commission and the District of Columbia Circuit over the authority to relax filing requirements, and at different times proceeded on different assumptions as to who would win. We have here not a consistent history of legislation to which one or the other, interpretation of the Act is essential; but rather two pieces of legislation to which first one, and then the other, interpretation of the Act is more congenial. That is not enough to change anything.
Finally, petitioners earnestly urge that their interpretation of § 203(b) furthers the Communications Act's broad purpose of promoting efficient telephone service. They claim that although the filing requirement prevented price discrimination and unfair practices while AT&T maintained a monopoly over long-distance service, it frustrates those same goals now that there is greater competition in that market. Specifically, they contend that filing costs raise artificial barriers to entry and that the publication of rates facilitates parallel pricing and stifles price competition. We have considerable sympathy with these arguments (though we doubt it makes sense, if one is concerned about the use of filed tariffs to communicate pricing information, to require filing by the dominant carrier, the firm most likely to be a price leader). The Court itself has policed trade associations and rate bureaus under the antitrust laws precisely because the sharing of pricing information can facilitate price fixing, see, e. g., Sugar Institute, Inc. v. United States, 297 U. S. 553
233
Page: Index Previous 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007