Cite as: 535 U. S. 467 (2002)
Opinion of Breyer, J.
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The 1996 Act sought to bring competition to local-exchange markets, in part by requiring incumbent local-exchange carriers to lease elements of their networks at rates that would attract new entrants when it would be more efficient to lease than to build or resell. Whether the FCC picked the best way to set these rates is the stuff of debate for economists and regulators versed in the technology of telecommunications and microeconomic pricing theory. The job of judges is to ask whether the Commission made choices reasonably within the pale of statutory possibility in deciding what and how items must be leased and the way to set rates for leasing them. The FCC's pricing and additional combination rules survive that scrutiny.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed in part and affirmed in part, and the cases are remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice O'Connor took no part in the consideration or decision of these cases.
Justice Breyer, with whom Justice Scalia joins as to Part VI, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I agree with the majority that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (Act or Telecommunications Act), 47 U. S. C. § 251 et seq. (1994 ed. and Supp. V), does not require a historical cost pricing system. I also agree that, at the present time, no taking of the incumbent firms' property in violation of the Fifth Amendment has occurred. I disagree, however, with the Court's conclusion that the specific pricing and un-bundling rules at issue here are authorized by the Act.
I
The primary goal of the Telecommunications Act is to "promote competition and reduce regulation" in both local
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