WASHINGTON-A junior member of the Senate Commerce Committee introduced legislation to transform communications regulation by modeling the Federal Communications Commission’s work after the Federal Trade Commission.
The proposed legislation by Sen. James DeMint (R-S.C.) tracks closely with a proposal made earlier this year by the Progress & Freedom Foundation-a think tank dedicated to market-orientated public policy.
“Sen. DeMint has demonstrated great vision in recognizing the need for Congress, in this era of competition and convergence driven by rapid technological change, to adopt a new communications regulatory paradigm. DeMint’s farsighted bill wisely replaces an existing regime that ties regulation to outdated and ever-evolving techno-functional constructs with a forward-looking one that grounds the need for any regulatory intervention in the assessment of marketplace realities,” said Randolph May, PFF senior fellow and director of communications policy studies.
PFF is leading an effort to write a replacement for the Communications Act to be known as the Digital Age Communications Act.
DeMint’s proposed 50 pages of legislation changes the universal-service contribution mechanism to one based on telephone numbers, a change that is favored by FCC Chairman Kevin Martin. It also creates block grants for the distribution of universal-service subsidies.
If the DeMint bill were to become law, FCC regulations would sunset after five years unless the commission could prove their necessity.
The bill has been referred to the Senate Commerce Committee, which is scheduled to spend the winter focusing on issues related to communications policy before producing a bill later in 2006.
