NARUC BPL TASK FORCE HEAD SEES NO TURF WAR WITH FCC OR FERC

Speakers at a NARUC summer meeting BPL panel (CD July 15 p3) had raised the possibility of BPL and other new telecom technologies facing major development hurdles until federal and state regulators sort out their oversight roles and jurisdictional issues. Chappelle said states weren’t going to argue that only they should get to regulate because “it’s a question of how both federal and state entities streamline practices already on the book so as not to become an obstacle. So I don’t see us fighting over who gets what.”

Chappelle said the National Emergency Management Assn. (NEMA) had raised jurisdictional issues such as which of the federal entities -- the FCC or the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) -- should have proper jurisdiction over BPL. The association had also raised questions of whether BPL was telecom or electric or neither and whether it was an information service as defined by the FCC or because it predominantly goes over electric wires it should be subject to FERC oversight. It was early for states to discuss these issues, she said, because neither the FCC nor FERC was “complaining” now.

Asked if she was ruling out any areas of conflict between the states and federal regulators, Chappelle said, “to the extent that there are areas that overlap, I would hope that we would be able to put out some recommendations on who we could work with the FCC or FERC to streamline that.” Trying to make the link between old-fashioned regulations and newer technologies was difficult, she said. For instance, she said, there was talk that regulators wanted to “go ahead and regulate VoIP. I think they are just asking questions such as what do you do about 911.” That, Chappelle said, didn’t mean that regulators were eager to regulate: “We'll set the terms, the prices and how many people can serve what areas.”

The current regulatory jurisdictional arguments over telecom are “so heated and inbred because you are talking about overturning decades of regulatory practice at the state level in particular,” Chappelle said. But that wasn’t the case with BPL, she said, and “so to me there can only be a real big turf battle if I am thinking I have the turf to begin with. I don’t see that type of states’ rights arguments coming into play.”

Although the task force has turned its attention to regulatory issues (CD Aug 2 p3), it hadn’t finished exploration of technical questions, Chappelle said: “I wouldn’t say we are finished with that. Actually, we will fine tune that a bit again.” The members of the task force weren’t technical experts, she said, and weren’t duplicating FCC efforts to probe interference issues. Whatever information the task force gathers on technical issues would be incorporated into its final recommendations, she said: “Security and the technical issues will be two very important components of the final report, but I see the core of the group’s work to be streamlining and making recommendations to address the old-fashioned regulatory issues that come into play with a new technology like BPL.”

Pole attachments and affiliate transactions were among the early issues that the task force would tackle, Chappelle said, and upcoming meetings would “really start to distill out exactly what regulatory hurdles are out there.” As for whether the group was on track to come out with recommendations this fall, she said was looking at the end of fall. She said she wanted to have a face-to-face meeting with fellow commissioners and a “real big public meeting where lots of industry players and the press come in and talk about these issues in order for us to put together this report.”