FCC Process Gets Critical Eyes

The Federal Communications Commission's Managing Director Jon Wilkins and Inspector General David Hunt came in for some tough questioning from House Communications Subcommittee members in a hearing on FCC process reform.

IG Hunt was particularly critical of FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's creation of a strike force to weed out waste, fraud and corruption in the Universal Service Fund, as well as his inability to hire criminal investigators. He said that there was confusion at DOJ about who was in charge of investigations and that it might have been better to put the strike force under IG, which has to report to Congress. Wilkins said that the two were complimentary, that they needed to coordinate, and that he thought there had been some good coordination. The FCC's IT, particularly Web site functionality, came in for criticism, with Subcommittee chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) saying as a former broadcaster, he found it "useless." Republican members honed in on the strike force issue and IT problems, though Democrats also had trouble with an agency focused on communications whose web site was brought down by the flood of network neutrality comments.