House Subcommittee Renews Efforts to Improve Transparency, Efficiency, and Accountability at the FCC

The Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, chaired by Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR), examined legislative proposals to improve transparency, efficiency, and accountability at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Members reviewed discussion drafts of the FCC Process Reform Act and the FCC Consolidated Reporting Act, both similar to the legislation approved with bipartisan support last Congress. The draft bills are part of the ongoing effort to streamline obligations of the FCC and improve decision making while reducing regulatory burdens facing job creators. Democrats didn’t like the bills last year when they passed the GOP-controlled House, and they don’t like the newly minted ones now.

Figuring the bills will take the same trajectory as they did last year and go nowhere in the Senate, Dems saw the whole hearing as a waste of time. Only two Dems even bothered to show up for the hearing, ranking subcommittee member Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) and ranking commerce committee member Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA). As a result, the back and forth between the GOP and Dems was often reduced to bipartisan fireworks. Rep Eshoo called the bills “a backdoor way of gutting the FCC’s authority.” Rep Waxman argued the bills would tie the agency up in knots. “The red tape created by this legislation is astounding,” said Waxman, adding that the agency would have to hire more people and spend more money. At one point, Rep Eshoo cut through the partisan back-and-forth to point out that it was the section that would limit the FCC’s ability to impose merger conditions unrelated to the specific transaction that was causing the most division. She seemed to suggest that if Chairman Walden would remove that section of the bills, perhaps the Dems could work with the GOP. “There are smaller reforms we can do on a bipartisan and bicameral basis, but this is the area that causes the most heartbreak both pro and con,” said Rep Eshoo. But Chairman Walden is unlikely to budge on a point that he often cites as the biggest reason for the bill in the first place.

Bottom line is the bills are likely to sail through the commerce committee and pass again in the House. The big question is whether Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV) can overcome Senate Dems and get the bills a hearing in the commerce committee and on to the Senate floor.

Lobbyists were cautiously supportive of Republican efforts to reform FCC processes.