House Members Dig Into FCC Process Overhaul Questions

Democrats resisted the trio of transparency bills Republicans offered at a subcommittee hearing Thursday, joined in their opposition by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and public interest groups. Wheeler said he hopes to present Congress with recommendations on process overhaul by the time lawmakers return from their August recess.

Hill Democrats touted four measures. Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., offered a draft bill that would make the FCC provide quarterly reports to Congress, posted online, on the decisions pending by bureau in addition to requests and the length of time each request has been pending. Rep. David Loebsack, D-Iowa, circulated a draft measure that would compel the FCC to publicly post internal procedures and keep the public informed of any modifications. Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., presented a draft proposal making the FCC coordinate with the Small Business Administration and advise on how to get more small businesses involved. Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., also touted her bipartisan FCC Collaboration Act (HR-1396), introduced in March with a goal of allowing commissioners to meet with one another more easily. Wheeler backs that idea, he said. Eshoo’s co-sponsors are Reps. John Shimkus, R-Ill., and Mike Doyle, D-Pa. Subcommittee Democrats “have come together and put together a smart, commonsense plan to keep the FCC fast, efficient, and transparent,” said House Commerce Committee ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., in a statement. “Our plan makes certain that the FCC stays a model of effective government.”

“Your ideas make a lot of sense,” Walden told his Democratic colleagues at the hearing. “We’re open to this discussion.” He rejected the notion that the hearing was meant to be punitive: “This has nothing to do with net neutrality.”

Democrats requested a congenial spirit. Eshoo warned against “using [Wheeler] as a piñata” in the course of the hearing. “Let’s be careful,” Pallone said, advising his colleagues not to “pick apart” Wheeler. Wheeler testified before Congress five times in March at hearings that all became embroiled in net neutrality. Eshoo and Pallone expressed concerns about the GOP proposals, as expected (see 1504290052). Pallone pointed to the Democratic measures. “Democrats are not the party of no,” Pallone said, holding up “their own plan.”

Fourteen groups blasted the three GOP proposals at the heart of the hearing and slammed the idea of pursuing the Communications Act overhaul in a piecemeal approach. Republican measures included one from Subcommittee Vice Chairman Bob Latta, R-Ohio, that would require the FCC to publish a list of items put on delegated authority, another from Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., making the agency publish drafts of items upon their circulation, and a third from Rep. Renee Ellmers, R-N.C., to force the commission to publish rules the day the agency adopts them. Groups including the Center for Democracy and Technology, Common Cause, Consumers Union, Demand Progress, Engine, Free Press, the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute and Public Knowledge sent subcommittee leadership a letter blasting the GOP proposals as likely to cause “negative” effects, dubbing Kinzinger’s “the most harmful.” The groups feared broader problems: “The concerns posed by these discussion drafts demonstrate the importance of considering Communications Act reforms in a comprehensive manner rather than in small legislative bites.”

Such “agency-specific procedural changes” have the potential to “give the public the impression that these are simply backdoor efforts to undermine popular decisions with which some members of Congress disagree,” Pallone cautioned in his written opening statement.

Walden took a shot at Wheeler’s criticisms of the proposals. “If you really think that drafting, amending and adopting rules without giving the public an opportunity to see them before they are crammed down their throats is good process, then it’s no wonder the public has little faith in the agencies of government,” Walden said. Wheeler defended his record as chairman, comparing when he was able to release orders with when former chairmen did and arguing the use of delegated authority is relatively low.

Reed Hundt, a former FCC chairman, blasted the GOP measures. “The trio will not help the FCC act in an expeditious manner on its business, will not add to transparency, and will sow more confusion than clarity for the private sector,” Hundt wrote lawmakers. He said they “will hamper the ability of the Chairman … to discharge in a collegial, expeditious and practical manner the myriad duties delegated to the agency by Congress” and “would contribute to the dysfunction that has caused public approval of government in general to fall to alarmingly low levels.”

“It might be out the door before I know what happened,” FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly told Walden of items decided on delegated authority. He defended the measures offered by subcommittee Republicans. Wheeler kept stressing his internal focus on process overhaul. “We’re going to roll up our sleeves and deal with it as a commission,” Wheeler said, lauding O’Rielly’s focus on process. “I’m not sure what’s broken,” Eshoo told O’Rielly of the decision-making. “It’s my understanding that it originates with the commission.”

“Let’s get it in statute -- clear transparency and reform,” Walden said, agreeing that Wheeler and lawmakers are serious about process overhaul. “But we get to legislate, too.”