Must See FCC

The Federal Communications Commission should be a big hit again in 2008, provoking lots of colorfully caustic cacophony rivaling only that gushing from the presidential campaign and the deepening fallout of the mortgage-credit crisis.
It will be not so much what the Republican-controlled FCC does or will attempt to do in the new year, but rather what the Democratic-led Congress, telecom-media-tech companies and public-interest groups attempt to do to the agency and its fearless leader Kevin Martin. It will be, after all, an election year.
Some lawmakers, convinced the FCC is making a sordid mess of the digital universe, have already telegraphed their intentions. They’re particularly peeved about media concentration, which – for mobile-phone operators – is preferable to having them scrutinize wireless industry consolidation.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), a member of the Senate Commerce Committee, said she plans to pursue legislation to establish an independent inspector general at the FCC. She sees an inherent conflict with an FCC chairman handpicking an IG to police against waste, fraud and abuse. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W. Va.), second only to the chairman in committee rank, put a lump of coal in Martin’s holiday stocking by exasperatingly stating he thinks the panel next year should consider overhauling the FCC and putting the brakes on the pending re-nominations of Commissioners Deborah Taylor Tate (R ) and Jonathan Adelstein (D) until after the next Decider is elected. On Rockefeller’s idea of examining an FCC reorganization in 2008, Senate Commerce Committee head Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) didn’t hesitate in responding, “I can assure you it will be done.”
Some in Congress already are out to prove Shakespeare wrong by pushing bills that seek, indeed, to undo what has been done at the FCC. Alas, poor Kevin!
House Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) is far less specific in what he believes is the proper antidote for the ailing agency, making his cryptic words sound all the more ominous. “The FCC is a creature of Congress, and these matters will be the subject of rigorous oversight by the Committee on Energy and Commerce,” Dingell stated.
It doesn’t appear there will be much opportunity for comic relief at the FCC when 2008 kicks into full gear. The best the commission can hope for is that the 700 MHz auction puts a nano-scale dent in a budget deficit increasingly fueled by a war without apparent end.