WASHINGTON-FCC Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy said Thursday she will leave the Federal Communications Commission Dec. 9, even though the White House has yet to name a replacement.
Abernathy’s announcement was expected. Her term expired in June 2005, and she had to leave when Congress adjourns for the year, which could come at any time during December.
“Our largely market-driven approach to advanced services has helped create a vibrant market for new wired and wireless telecommunications products, and our spectrum-reform initiatives have improved our ability to put this scarce resource to its most effective use,” said Abernathy, a Republican. “All of our successes, and even our failures, demonstrate one fundamental truth: that regulation is most effective when it deals with markets as they are-not as they might once have been, and not as we would ideally like them to be.”
The White House recently nominated Republican Deborah Tate, a member of the Tennessee Regulator Authority, and Democratic Commissioner Michael Copps to the five-member independent regulatory body that oversees telecommunications and media issues. Members serve five-year terms and are selected from both political parties. Three members, including the chairman, come from the president’s political party, while the remaining two come from the opposite party. The president nominates the members, and the Senate confirms the nominations after hearings.
Former FCC Chairman Michael Powell left the agency in March, leaving incoming Republican Chairman Kevin Martin with an evenly split group. Now with Abernathy’s imminent departure and no word from the Senate Commerce Committee about when it will hold confirmation hearings for Tate and Copps, it increasingly looks like Martin will be the lone Republican on the commission-at least for a while.
FCC Commissioners Copps and Jonathan Adelstein are Democrats. Although Copps’ first term expired in June, he can stay until the end of 2006.
As for Tate, a more complete picture of her is emerging as various entities dissect her official record. For example, she has been a strong advocate for Voice over Internet Protocol and urged consumer-centric, rather than accounting-centric, regulation of telecommunications.
