WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission last week received approval for the first step in Chairman William Kennard’s plan to reform the agency for the 21st century.
Kennard announced at an FCC-sponsored event at the Georgetown Law Center that the FCC has received congressional approval to create two new bureaus to oversee enforcement and consumer information functions. He announced his intention to create these bureaus at the same event last year.
The bureaus are expected to be up and running shortly.
“There has been a lot of planning [on the enforcement and public information bureaus] so I would think they would be up and running within a few weeks … With most everything we work with, you have the choice whether to handle in a rule making or through enforcement. That is a choice we need to be making and making in favor of enforcement,” said Lawrence Strickling, chief of the FCC’s Common Carrier Bureau.
The Georgetown event, “The FCC in 2000: Hot Topics of the New Millennium,” began with a speech by Kennard and continued with various panels.
During the bureau chiefs panel, bureau chiefs for the Common Carrier Bureau, the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau and the deputy bureau chief for the Mass Media Bureau said that formal complaints-and the staffers that process them-now will go to the enforcement bureau. Informal complaint functions will be handled by the consumer information bureau.
Creating the two bureaus is seen as the first step in Kennard’s blueprint to reform the FCC for the 21st century. Another step will be to arrange the FCC along functional lines rather than by industry sector. This met some criticism by FCC Commissioner Michael Powell, who said the Communications Act is divided by industry sector.
FCC reform “is achievable but not to the degree the marketplace needs … the statute remains in a balkanized form,” Powell said.
