WASHINGTON – Just before Congress shut down for its annual August recess, retiring Rep. Jack Fields (R-Texas) along with co-signer John Dingell (D-Mich.) presented Federal Communications Commission Chairman Reed Hundt with something to take on his Colorado vacation: the FCC Modernization Act of 1996.
The act “is about further reducing the regulatory burdens on a competitive industry and streamlining the operations of the commission,” said Fields.
At a news conference last Thursday, Hundt commented that while “it’s hard to re-design the engine while it’s humming at this pace, we have to.” Hundt added that he welcomes the upcoming opportunities to discuss the bill’s changes with Congress and with individual legislators during the next two months prior to any vote.
Designed to “clear some of the underbrush” at the commission now that many new telecom-reform challenges have been met, the modernization bills seeks to:
streamline the FCC’s management and prepare the agency for possible additional personnel cuts;
reduce regulatory burdens by delegating some authority to outside sources, by eliminating unnecessary procedures and by automation; and
repeal any unnecessary strictures of the Communications Act of 1934.
Assuming the bill is signed into law, the commission would have six months to submit a plan to Congress detailing its financial and personnel requirements for the next five years, the savings anticipated by streamlining and automation, how much funding will be necessary for management and overhead expenses and any additional requirements necessary to comply with the act.
Besides cutting out any future FCC fat, the bill proposes cutting the requirement on common carriers to file any changes to contracts between carriers; however, the commission would retain the right to review such changes if it deemed necessary.
The downside to the proposed modernization act affects the wireless industry. Pioneer’s preferences would be discontinued immediately, instead of in 1998, as the original Uruguay Round Agreements stipulated.
However, the Aug. 2 bill also proposes to clip Hundt’s wings with a Dingell-authored clause that would ban any FCC chairman from traveling 50 miles outside of Washington, D.C., for two years after the bill’s enactment. According to Dingell, the chairman’s duty to Congress requires him or her to stay close to the commission to monitor telecom reform and other congressional mandates. While initial reports said Dingell might forgo this requirement to get the act passed, the congressman has said he remains committed to the clause.
Hundt, of course, is less than thrilled with this attempt to tether him to his office. “My own vision of the FCC is to be in close contact with the states – working with them, talking with them, seeing them about what (regulations) need clarification. We can’t be bunkered down here in a foxhole surrounded by 75 lobbyists.”
