Federal/State Jurisdiction

The issue of jurisdiction, &s;states rights&s; versus the federal authority, is as old as the United States. In telecommunications, the line is indistinct because interstate communications nearly always involve some intrastate activity. State communications policy is directed by the fifty different public utility or public service commissions. The FCC and the states, through representatives selected by the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC), are supposed to work through the various jurisdictional and allocation issues presented by the interstate/intrastate divisions in Joint Boards, mandated in Sec. 410 of the Communications Act. Depreciation is defined as the loss in service value of a capital asset over time. The Supremacy Clause of Art. VI of the Constitution provides Congress with the power to pre-empt state law. Sometimes a state regulation runs afoul of the Constitution&s;s commerce clause because the federal government has preempted the field from state regulation.