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Syllabus
sented with specific rate orders alleged to be confiscatory. See, e. g., Duquesne, 488 U. S., at 303-304. Indeed, the general rule is that any question about the constitutionality of ratesetting is raised by rates, not methods. See, e. g., Hope Natural Gas Co., 320 U. S., at 602. Thus, the policy of construing a statute to avoid constitutional questions is presumptively out of place when construing a measure like TELRIC that prescribes a method. The incumbents argue unpersuasively that this action is placed outside the general rule by strong signs that takings will occur if the TELRIC interpretation of § 252(d)(1) is allowed. First, their comparison of historical investment in local telephone markets with the corresponding estimate of a TELRIC evaluation is spurious because their assumed numbers are clearly wrong. Second, they misplace their reliance on dicta in Duquesne, supra, at 315, to the effect that there may be a taking challenge if a ratemaking body makes opportunistic methodology changes just to minimize a utility's return on capital investment. There is no evidence that the decision to adopt TELRIC was arbitrary, opportunistic, or undertaken with a confiscatory purpose. Indeed, the indications in the record are very much to the contrary. Pp. 523-528.
2. The FCC can require incumbents to combine elements of their networks at the request of entrants who cannot combine themselves, when they lease them to the entrants. Thus, the Eighth Circuit erred in invalidating the additional combination rules, Rules 315(c)-(f ). Pp. 528-539.
(A) The Court rejects the incumbents' threshold objection that the Government's and competing carriers' challenge to the rules invalidation is barred by waiver because the Iowa Utilities Bd. petition to review the Eighth Circuit's earlier invalidation of Rule 315(b) did not extend to its simultaneous invalidation of Rules 315(c)-(f). The incumbents argue that the Eighth Circuit exceeded the scope of this Court's mandate when it revisited the unchallenged portion of its earlier holding, and that this Court should decline to reach the validity of Rules 315(c)-(f) because doing so would encourage the sort of strategic, piecemeal litigation disapproved in Communist Party of United States v. Subversive Activities Control Bd., 367 U. S. 1, 30-31. However, that case does not block consideration of Rules 315(c)-(f) here. Addressing the issue now would not "make waste" of years of efforts by the FCC or the Eighth Circuit, id., at 32, n. 8, would not threaten to leave a constitutional ruling pointless, and would direct the Court's attention not to an isolated, "long-stale" procedural error by the agency, ibid., but to the invalidation of FCC rules meant to have general and continuing applicability. There is no indication that litigation tactics
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