Congress Expects Answers on Broadband from FCC Nominees

The report was requested by Sen. George Voinovich, R- Ohio, ranking member of the Homeland Security Government Management Subcommittee, and builds on a previous effort in 2000-01. “You expressed concern then and now that some nominees may lack the depth and breadth of experience required to manage a federal agency effectively,” Acting Comptroller General Gene Dodaro said in a letter to Voinovich included with the report. The questions GAO poses are aimed at helping determining eligibility for key positions across 28 departments and agencies.

The Senate Commerce Committee is likely to hold at least 70 confirmation hearings for the agencies under its purview, which will consume the bulk of committee activity in the first few months of the new Congress, an aide said. About 100 nominations go through the committee, not counting consideration of the Coast Guard and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration promotions that the committee handles, usually on a routine basis, the aide said.

First to come will be hearings on nominees for the proposed Commerce and Transportation Department secretaries, and the Federal Aviation Administration administrator.

The FCC faces “critical challenges,” the report said, since its regulatory structure oversees communications networks providing distinct services that have “increasingly converged to provide similar bundled services … sometimes in a monopoly environment.” The commission “faces difficulties of ensuring robust competition,” the report said. The commission needs to balance “competing demands for a limited radio-frequency spectrum” with demand for new services and need for adequate spectrum for public safety. Nominees should be prepared to offer ideas on how to change the agency’s organizational structure to align it better with the industry, the report said.

Nominees also should be quizzed on media ownership policies, GAO said. One question it suggests members pose is whether candidates for office have had any experience “confronting and balancing the competing interest of large private-sector entities and the public.” Nominees also should be prepared to offer ideas for better administrative control of the schools and libraries E-rate fund, which has come under scrutiny for waste, fraud and abuse, the report said. It noted the program’s high payment error rate as a topic of concern. GAO also suggested nominees be asked how they would improve the FCC’s data collection efforts.

Protecting and revamping government information systems is an urgent need, and members should press nominees for their ideas, GAO said. Electronic health records are part of that focus, and nominees should be quizzed on what the federal government role should be as the nation moves toward widespread electronic exchange of health records, GAO said. Federal agencies have spent billions of dollars developing systems that are not cost-effective and fail to deliver expected results, the report said. “It is essential that information and technology are well managed,” the report said.

NOAA is one of two Commerce bureaus GAO singled out as facing upcoming challenges that the new administration needs to address, due to problems with the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System program. A 2006 restructuring removed some climate and space environment measuring sensors responsibilities from the program, but there still is not agreement on how to accommodate this change, GAO said. “In the past, GAO has reported lessons learned from satellite acquisitions such as underestimating program costs and the unanticipated expansion of the program’s scope,” the report said. Therefore Commerce nominees should be asked about their experience handling large scale acquisitions, especially ones that have encountered cost overruns.