Cite as: 512 U. S. 218 (1994)
Stevens, J., dissenting
Justice Stevens, with whom Justice Blackmun and Justice Souter join, dissenting.
The communications industry has an unusually dynamic character. In 1934, Congress authorized the Federal Communications Commission (FCC or Commission) to regulate "a field of enterprise the dominant characteristic of which was the rapid pace of its unfolding." National Broadcasting Co. v. United States, 319 U. S. 190, 219 (1943). The Communications Act of 1934 (Act) gives the FCC unusually broad discretion to meet new and unanticipated problems in order to fulfill its sweeping mandate "to make available, so far as possible, to all the people of the United States, a rapid, efficient, Nation-wide and world-wide wire and radio communication service with adequate facilities at reasonable charges." 47 U. S. C. § 151. This Court's consistent interpretation of the Act has afforded the Commission ample leeway to interpret and apply its statutory powers and responsibilities. See, e. g., United States v. Southwestern Cable Co., 392 U. S. 157, 172-173 (1968); FCC v. Pottsville Broadcasting Co., 309 U. S. 134, 138 (1940). The Court today abandons that approach in favor of a rigid literalism that deprives the FCC of the flexibility Congress meant it to have in order to implement the core policies of the Act in rapidly changing conditions.
I
At the time the Act was passed, the telephone industry was dominated by the American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T) and its affiliates. Title II of the Act, which establishes the framework for FCC regulation of common carriers by wire, was clearly a response to that dominance. As the Senate Report explained, "[u]nder existing provisions of the Interstate Commerce Act the regulation of the telephone monopoly has been practically nil. This vast monopoly which so immediately serves the needs of the peo-
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