WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission should be funded solely through fees rather than congressional appropriations, said Rep. John D. Dingell, ranking member of the House Commerce Committee.
“I have always felt that the FCC should be able to function on a basis of a fee system. [Other governmental agencies do this because] then they got free of the appropriators who are always able to inhibit innovation and regretfully direct the policy through annual appropriations oversight, instead of allowing this [to be done by] the legislative committee which has both the vision and expertise,” said Dingell at last week’s Quello Center Second Telecommunications Policy and Law Symposium.
Dingell’s dislike of appropriators making law is not an unusual response coming from the ranking member of an authorizing rather than appropriating committee in the House of Representative. Authorizers often feel they know more about agencies in their areas and should be the ones responsible for drafting the laws for those agencies but often policy language is added to appropriation bills to speed the process to the ire of authorizing members especially in the House. In the Senate, members often sit on both committees so there is not always this tug-of-war.
Currently, the FCC receives an annual appropriation amount from the federal budget, but then is required to assess regulatory fees on entities under its jurisdiction to recoup a large percentage of that appropriation. Last year, wireless carriers were assessed 30 cents per subscriber for their portion of the regulatory fee assessment.
Dingell’s keynote focused on the prospects of FCC reform and the fact that it might actually happen now that Michael K. Powell has been elevated to chairman.
“We have a new FCC chairman that seems to be committed to making the FCC work. … I am delighted there now appears to be a chairman with a more enlightened mindset. … The FCC must be reconstructed to meet the needs of the Information Age,” said Dingell.
A leading wireless lobbyist agreed with Dingell that the FCC needs internal reform since that reform did not come with passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
“Where the act fell short-and where Congress has perhaps fell short since the passage of the act-is to reform or change the FCC so it is in fact an agency that can act in a competitive environment. [Change the FCC] to allow it to move away from the yoke of decades of regulatory mindset that deals with monopolies and stovepipe approaches to types of technology to recognize a truly competitive world, where there is a convergence of different type of services, let alone technologies to provide consumers with what the consumer wants, when the consumer wants it and where the consumer wants it,” said Brian F. Fontes, vice president of government relations for Cingular Wireless Inc.
Powell has said he is not sure this type of internal reform can occur because the Communications Act is still divided by title, by technology, but he says he is looking into it. His predecessor, William E. Kennard, started FCC reform by combining all of the consumer information and enforcement functions of the various bureaus and offices into two new bureaus. This was seen by many as the first action toward an FCC aligned along function rather than service or technology lines.
Dingell did not seem to care that when Powell recently appeared before the House telecom subcommittee, he came with an outline but no specifics for the FCC reform he has touted since being elevated to the chairmanship in January.
“I was less interested in understanding what precisely he has in mind only that he is committed to going forward” with reform, said Dingell.
Fontes, during a panel on “the consequences of regulatory policy lagging behind technological change,” gave his ideas on FCC reform, including writing regulations with sunset provisions and providing incentives to achieve social goals rather than attempting to predict market failures and guarding against those failures.
A consumer advocate speaking on a later panel called for legislation that allows for regulation even if the goal is to deregulate.
“It needs to build in a structure of in-course correction into the regulatory model,” said Gene Kimmelman, co-director of Consumers Union.
