House Commerce Committee Approves Bipartisan FCC Process Reform

The House of Representatives Commerce Committee approved the Federal Communications Commission Process Reform Act (H.R. 3675) with an amendment in the nature of a substitute offered by Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR) and Subcommittee Ranking Member Anna Eshoo (D-CA). The amendment represents a bipartisan compromise that presents the FCC with a framework to bring additional transparency and predictability to its work.

The bill also contains some statutory provisions including changes to the sunshine rules and a permanent exception to the Antideficiency Act for the federal Universal Service Fund. The bill sets maximum comment periods (with a carveout for good cause exemptions) for regulatory actions, including petitions for reconsideration and "establish[es] procedures for publishing the status of open rulemaking proceedings and proposed orders, decisions, reports, or actions on circulation for review by the Commissioners, including which Commissioners have not cast a vote on an order, decision, report, or action that has been on circulation for more than 60 days."

Among the more contentious issues it tees up in a mandatory FCC report are: "whether and how" to 1) allow commissioners, rather than just the chairman, to put issues on the agenda; 2) establish procedures for informing commissioners of their options for resolving a petition, complaint, application or rulemaking; 3) give commissioners adequate time to review items before they have to vote on them; 4) publish the text of agenda items before they are voted on in an open meeting so the public can read them; 5) deadlines for deciding of license applications; 6) to impose a license fee to help pay for any additional cost of meeting those deadlines; and 7) publish all orders, decisions and reports within 30 days of adoption.