Sen Grassley refuses to lift hold on FCC nominees despite agency backtracking on LightSquared

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) plans to block President Obama's two nominees to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) despite the agency nixing LightSquared's high-speed wireless network.

Sen Grassley placed the hold on the nominees to try to force the FCC to release internal records on its review of the company. He questioned why the FCC allowed LightSquared to get as far as it did in the regulatory process despite tests that showed its network could disrupt GPS devices. “The FCC’s action seems to acknowledge the point I’ve been making since April," Sen Grassley said. "Prematurely granting a conditional waiver in a rushed process is not the way to get the right result. Now that the interference issue is settled, we need to find out more than ever why the FCC did what it did." "The agency put this project on a fast track for approval with what appears to have been completely inadequate technical research," Grassley said. "After all of this time and expense, still, no one outside of the agency knows why. That’s not the way the people’s government should work. The public’s business ought to be public." FCC officials have declined to meet with Sen Grassley on several occasions, saying the usual order of the Senate is to only meet with lawmakers who serve on committees with jurisdiction over their agency. Although Sen Grassley is the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, he does not sit on the Senate Commerce Committee, which oversees the FCC.

"Now that the FCC has backtracked on LightSquared, I’d like to see my Senate colleagues join my document request, especially the chairman of the only Senate committee that the FCC is willing to answer," Sen Grassley said, referring to Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV). "If we don’t find out how and why the FCC failed to avoid this controversy, then it will keep operating as a closed shop instead of the open, publicly accountable agency it should be.”