A welcome step toward curbing 'rent extraction' during FCC merger reviews

[Commentary] Under the plain terms of the Communications Act, the Federal Communications Commission is obligated to review industry mergers and acquisitions to determine whether such transactions serve the public interest. Given that the FCC is “entrusted with the responsibility to determine when and to what extent the public interest would be served by competition in the industry," the commission’s merger review serves a useful and important function. However, the FCC’s long-standing practice of using backroom, closed-door negotiations between the regulator and prospective merging parties to extract political concessions has done much to erode the Agency’s credibility with Congress and the American people alike. It takes tremendous courage to curb government’s proclivity to extract rents from the private sector. For that, Chairman Pai and his Republican colleagues at the FCC deserve recognition.

[Lawrence J. Spiwak is the president of the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal and Economic Public Policy Studies]