Federal Communications Commission Oversight Hearing

Toward the end of a House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology oversight hearing on July 10, Federal Communications Commissioners told Congress to revive the law that broke down a major barrier to entry for potential minority and women media owners.

The House Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Communications and Technology held a Federal Communications Commission oversight hearing on July 10. The FCC’s five commissioner testified. There was a lot of attention on regulatory reform.

With the May 7, 2012, confirmation of Federal Communications Commission members Rosenworcel and Pai, FCC is back to a full complement of five commissioners. This will be the first hearing with the commissioners since their appointments. The committee’s majority staff offers a summary of some of the issues that may arise at the hearing including: 1) Commercial Spectrum Auctions, 2) Interoperable Public Safety Broadband Network, 3) Universal Service, 4) Special Access, 5) Video and Broadcast Ownership Regulation, 6) Cable Spectrum Transfer (the Verizon-SpectrumCo deal), 7) June 29 Storm Outages.

The House Commerce Committee’s Communications Subcommittee will hold a future of video hearing June 27, following up on last week's hearing on the future of audio. Also, the full committee has scheduled a Federal Communications Commission oversight hearing for July 10. It will be the committee's first chance to hear from the two new commissioners, as well as to catch up with the others.