You must be referring to Part 15 of the FCC Rules.
1) The device must not cause harmful interference.
2) The device may receive interference, such that it may cause undesired operation of the unit.
That's gotta be a very broad statement.
There's also something of consequence here.
Regardless of where the transmitter is, or how well filtered it is, or how otherwise managed to stay exactly on frequency. You have a +/-200kHz bandwidth on either side of the FM frequency you are listening to. It is very natural for the first adjacent to interfere, especially within the distance of the first few blocks from a transmitter site. This would translate anywhere from a 1/4th to a 1/2 of a mile at the very worst.
It would be rather unreasonable to stay within 99.7 and not have the modulation deviate one iota from 99.7.
The NAB has lobbied against the expansion of the LPFM service, instead wanting to advocate for commercial "responsible" full-power stations that have an engineering department competent and capable of ensuring signals will not interfere.
http://diymedia.net/nabnpr-on-lpfm-forked-tongues/1010
I know they are talking about LPFM, not translator stations. But the case could be made the same on that service too.
The argument that BOTT has is regardless of the station's licensed coverage and contour maps, 99.9's coverage reaches Fresno. In other words, they have listeners.
The position that BOTT
appears to have is regardless of 99.7's actions, the station should completely and utterly shut down; they have no business being on the air.
The FCC's position currently is that 99.7 appears to be taking actions to correct the issue with listeners in the area of the supposed interference. The most recent article on the issue of abuses in the shutting-down of the translator stations are outlined here.
https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/fcc-outlines-fm-translator-interference-changes
This all poses a question to the translator system in the United States as a whole. Should there be a contraction of translator and LPFM services in order to favor the band toward commercial full-power stations? Should the construction, permitting, and engineering of radio and television stations return to people who are licensed by the FCC?
In other words, should we reverse the actions of de-regulation within the scope of the FCC?
I have no answer to that, so I will leave it up for discussion.