Abernathy Talks Change and Choice

Outgoing FCC Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy said Thursday that the FCC she leaves behind needs to make some changes. In a speech to The Media Institute in Washington, she said she had been wrong to endorse a rulemaking approach that featured open-ended questions rather than getting a better handle on what the Commission wanted to do, a byproduct in part of the 1996 Telecom Act rewrite, she said, which set some "aggressive deadlines" for FCC action. Instead, she said, the FCC needs to deal with specifics sooner in the process through more staff papers that will sharpen the Commission's thinking before it proposes rulemakings. That may make the process of getting to the rulemaking proposal a little longer, she said, but could help expose holes in their reasoning earlier in the process and would probably not unduly lengthen the time to actual enforcement of a regulation. She used the media ownership proceeding as an example of the failure of the open-ended approach.
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
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