382
Opinion of the Court
The parties have devoted some effort in these cases to debating whether § 251(d) serves as a jurisdictional grant to the FCC. That section provides that "[w]ithin 6 months
Thomas that our interpretation renders § 152(b) a nullity. See ibid. After the 1996 Act, § 152(b) may have less practical effect. But that is because Congress, by extending the Communications Act into local competition, has removed a significant area from the States' exclusive control. Insofar as Congress has remained silent, however, § 152(b) continues to function. The Commission could not, for example, regulate any aspect of intrastate communication not governed by the 1996 Act on the theory that it had an ancillary effect on matters within the Commission's primary jurisdiction.
Justice Thomas admits, as he must, that the Commission has authority to implement at least some portions of the 1996 Act. See post, at 406. But his interpretation of § 152(b) confers such inflexibility upon that provision that he must strain to explain where the Commission gets this authority. A number of the provisions he relies on plainly read, not like conferrals of authority, but like references to the exercise of authority conferred elsewhere (we think, of course, in § 201(b)). See, e. g., § 251(b)(2) (assigning state commissions "[t]he duty to provide, to the extent technically feasible, number portability in accordance with requirements prescribed by the Commission"); § 251(d)(2) (setting forth factors for the Commission to consider "[i]n determining what network elements should be made available for purposes of subsection (c)(3)"); § 251(g) (requiring that any pre-existing "regulation, order, or policy of the Commission" governing exchange access and interconnection agreements remain in effect until it is "explicitly superseded by regulations prescribed by the Commission"). Moreover, his interpretation produces a most chopped-up statute, conferring Commission jurisdiction over such curious and isolated matters as "number portability, . . . those network elements that the carrier must make available on an unbundled basis for purposes of § 251(c), . . . numbering administration, . . . exchange access and interconnection requirements in effect prior to the Act's effective date, . . . and treatment of comparable carriers as incumbents . . . ," post, at 406, but denying Commission jurisdiction over much more significant matters. We think it most unlikely that Congress created such a strange hodgepodge. And, of course, Justice ThomasTMs recognition of any FCC jurisdiction over intrastate matters subjects his analysis to the same criticism he levels against us, post, at 409: Just as it is true that Congress did not explicitly amend § 152(b) to exempt the entire 1996 Act, neither did it explicitly amend § 152(b) to exempt the five provisions he relies upon.
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