McDowell Says FCC Process Reform Overdue
FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell Friday expressed general support for FCC process reform legislation slated for markup in the House Commerce Committee. The stakes may have been raised after the outpouring of industry support for FCC reform last week (CD Feb 3 p1), a House staffer said. The staffer predicted an “unpredictable markup” with Democrats likely to file amendments on HR-3309. The markup had been expected Tuesday, but has been delayed due to a scheduling conflict, a committee spokeswoman said Friday.
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"I think FCC process reform is due for a legislative overhaul and this should be a bipartisan issue,” McDowell told us. “Some ideas that are particularly meritorious would be requiring a true economic analysis of the effect of rules and proposed new rules, mandating a framework, or standards, for proposed transaction reviews and having a requirement, with exceptions, that the FCC include actual rules in NPRMs. Those types of ideas in the legislation, I think, are positive and constructive."
Two bills are before the committee. HR-3309 imposes requirements for rulemaking shot clocks, cost-benefit analyses and a variety of other process changes, and has the broad support of committee Republicans but is opposed by Democrats (CD March 3 p1). HR-3310 would consolidate many FCC reports and eliminate others and is also supported by committee Republicans. Democrats could also potentially support the second bill if some changes are made through a proposed amendment.
"I think we're actually overdue for a look not only at the laws governing the FCC process but the substantive laws governing the industries we oversee as well,” McDowell said. “Our economic review of the potential effects of our rules has become rote and pro forma at times. In other words, over time there have been fewer and fewer meaty analyses of the economic impact of our rules. That has to change. Related to that, there’s no definitive statutory standard as to what it is we should be looking at when we review transactions, which means the FCC can coerce merging companies to agree to things which have absolutely nothing to do with the effects felt by consumers as a result of the merger.”
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski “has made some good strides” in many areas in opening the commission’s processes, for example including the text of rules in more notices of proposed rulemaking than was the case in recent years, McDowell said. “But there’s still work to be done."
The markup was postponed because the House-Senate conference on the payroll tax cut is to meet Tuesday at 10 a.m. Key members of the Commerce Committee, including Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich. and Greg Walden, R-Ore., Communications Subcommittee chairman, and Ranking Member Henry Waxman, D-Calif., are members of the conference committee.