These days, the talk of the town alternates between war with Saddam and womanizing with Monica. Day and night. It’s overkill, but still quite serious stuff. But those two malcontents aren’t the only ones under siege.
In a roundabout way, so is FCC Chairman Bill Kennard.
The GOP-controlled Congress is testing Kennard’s mettle. Through congressional letters, investigations and highly ambitious legislative telecom agendas in an abbreviated session, Republican lawmakers want to see how far Kennard will move on a range of issues under their browbeating.
In fact, if GOP lawmakers could manage it, they’d be happy to micromanage the FCC from Capitol Hill. It’s really not a “vast right wing conspiracy,” just business. That’s the game that’s going on here.
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) is drafting legislation on emergency 911 antenna siting, local and long-distance telephone competition, telephone rates, satellite TV rates, cable TV rates, classroom Internet, slamming and spamming.
In addition, encryption and Internet tax freedom bills are on McCain’s plate.
Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), chairman of the Senate communications subcommittee, plans a comprehensive series of hearings on the implementation of the 1996 telecom act. He, too, will look at universal service (Feb. 25), Bell long-distance entry (March 4), Wall Street telecom perspectives (March 18), 800 telephone number charges (April 15 in Billings, Mont.), satellite reform (April 22), classroom Internet and bandwidth issues (April 29), FCC Common Carrier Bureau oversight (May 6), Wireless Bureau oversight (May 13), Mass Media Bureau oversight (May 20), Cable Bureau oversight (June 3), FCC reauthorization (June 10) and spamming (June 17).
Oh yes, McCain and House telecom subcommittee Chairman Billy Tauzin (R-La.) want to stop Kennard from carrying out President Clinton’s desire to give away free airtime to political candidates. It’s the high cost of TV political ads that forced the White House to fire up so many pots of coffee in 1996.
Kennard is a new opportunity for GOP lawmakers, who became totally frustrated and finally gave up on making the headstrong Reed Hundt see the light. The former FCC chairman was savvy enough to find allies on both sides of the isle on pet issues. Moreover, Hundt had political cover at the White House. For four years, at least.
As such, Hundt was criticized for being too political and for surrendering the statutory independence of the FCC.
Kennard, not having the cantankerous makeup of Hundt, is more prone to seek consensus. Precisely because of that, GOP lawmakers appear to want to see just how accommodating he’ll be. And they are going to push and push and push until Kennard draws a line in the sand. That day is coming.
