WASHINGTON-The Progress & Freedom Foundation, the Washington, D.C.-based think tank associated with House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., has a plan to abolish the Federal Communications Commission in three years and replace it with a smaller office within the executive branch.
“This plan represents the first step in a broader effort to replace the outmoded regulatory structures of industrial-age government,” said Jeffrey Eisenach, president of the group. “The current system cannot be reformed; it must be replaced, and the FCC is a great place to start.”
The report, which advocates privatizing all spectrum, is expected to be factored in when GOP lawmakers hold hearings this summer on FCC reauthorization.
FCC Chairman Reed Hundt said some of the Foundation’s proposals are already being implemented by the agency, but he disagreed with the philosophical underpinnings of the study.
“The Congress and the public want and need us to write fair rules of competition, collect still more money from spectrum auctions and protect consumers from monopolies,” Hundt said.
Edward Markey, D-Mass., the ranking minority member of the House telecommunications subcommittee, called the report unrealistic and naive. “To adopt it,” Markey said, “would be like driving down the information superhighway with blinders on.”
Gingrich, meanwhile, was recently quoted in a broadcasting trade magazine as saying he wanted to “phase out the FCC in three to five years at the most.”
