Cite as: 535 U. S. 467 (2002)
Opinion of the Court
any artificial rule or formula which changed conditions might upset"). Undeniably, then, the general rule is that any question about the constitutionality of ratesetting is raised by rates, not methods, and this means that the policy of construing a statute to avoid constitutional questions where possible is presumptively out of place when construing statutes prescribing methods.
The incumbents say this action is one of the rare ones placed outside the general rule by signs, too strong to ignore, that takings will occur if the TELRIC interpretation of § 252(d)(1) is allowed. First, they compare, at the level of the entire network (as opposed to element-by-element), industry balance-sheet indications of historical investment in local telephone markets with the corresponding estimate of a TELRIC evaluation of the cost to build a new and efficient national system of local exchanges providing universal service. Brief for Petitioners in No. 00-511, at 10-11, and n. 6. As against an estimated $180 billion for such a new system, the incumbents juxtapose a value representing "total plant" on the industry balance sheet for 1999 of roughly $342 billion. They argue that the huge and unreasonable difference is proof that TELRIC will necessarily result in confiscatory rates. Ibid. (citing FCC, 1999 Statistics of Communications Common Carriers 51 (Aug. 1, 2000) (table 2.9, line no. 32)).
The comparison, however, is spurious because the numbers assumed by the incumbents are clearly wrong. On the one side, the $180 billion is supposed to be based on constructing a barebones universal-service telephone network, and so it fails to cover elements associated with more advanced telecommunications services that incumbents are required to provide by lease under 47 U. S. C. § 251(c)(3). See Application by Bell Atlantic New York for Authorization under Section 271 of the Communications Act, 15 FCC Rcd. 3953,
¶ 245 (1999), aff'd, 220 F. 3d 607 (CADC 2000). See also In re Federal-State Joint Bd. on Universal Serv., 14 FCC Rcd. 20432, ¶ 41, and n. 125 (1999) (explaining that the universal-
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