The FCC’s retrospective regulatory review process has led...

analyses. Independent agencies such as the FCC and FTC didn’t have to form retrospective review plans, but those two did. “Both agencies said they have well-established practices to regularly review regulations and report outcomes,” GAO said in the 47-page report (http://1.usa.gov/1jzsvQ9). “FTC has a long-standing practice of maintaining a schedule, published annually, to ensure that each rule is reviewed approximately every 10 years. The commission modifies the schedule to accelerate the review of rules when it observes economic or marketplace changes that necessitate a rule review.” The FCC did “not develop an updated plan partly due to transitions among the agency’s top leadership,” referring to the vacant chairman slot for many months last year, GAO also found. The two agencies made many tweaks to regulations to make them more efficient or in reflection of administrative evolution, GAO said. “Of the 32 completed FCC analyses in our scope, 30 resulted in administrative changes, in particular cumulatively eliminating about 190 regulations that were obsolete” and in one example “eliminated outdated and unnecessary reporting requirements related to international telecommunications traffic,” said the report. For the FCC, it was important to centralize retrospective analysis through the general counsel’s office, with active communication to relevant bureaus and offices, FCC officials told GAO. “To help develop FCC’s review plan, agency officials said that they used existing review processes, such as the statutorily required biennial review of regulations related to telecommunications regulations,” GAO said. GAO, in its overall recommendations encompassing far more agencies, recommended the Office of Management and Budget coordinate with agencies on doing a better job in reporting on how they make tweaks as part of the retrospective reviews.