Genachowski Trying to Move Decisions Out of Chairman’s Office

“I think it’s a needed change,” Commissioner Michael Copps told us. “I think the vision of the FCC is that a lot of this stuff in the original legislation would be done at the bureau level. They have tremendous expertise there and those decisions would have credibility and standing. They could be, obviously, influenced and visited and revisited by the eighth floor. But it’s a balance. It’s not all supposed be about the chairman’s office or even all of the five commissioners’ offices together. It’s supposed to be, a lot of this, initiated and handled by the bureaus.”

Commissioner Robert McDowell said he agrees that the FCC should “use the resources” at its disposal in reaching decisions, including the expertise of FCC staff. He said the expertise available to the chairman’s office should be available to the other offices, too.

“Clearly the process under the last chairman was a really smoke-filled room approach, which was disastrous from our standpoint,” said Mark Cooper, the director of research at the Consumer Federation of America. “Occasionally we got something, but by and large that’s not the way you should do this stuff. The fact that they are going to not only do things in a more transparent way but also look at serious reform of that formal process is important. We're going to be pushing for real improvement in that formal process.”

“His hires at the bureau level reflect an emphasis, I would say, on a more academic and deliberative process,” said Harold Feld, the legal director of Public Knowledge. Sharon Gillett, the new Wireline Bureau chief, spent 11 years as a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he said. Paul de Sa, the new chief of the Office of Strategic Planning, is “also a heavy duty researcher with more of an academic approach,” he said.

Feld said he expects bureau chiefs to hand down many more orders on “delegated authority” than top staffers did under the previous chairman. “Martin very much centralized control of decision making in his office, more so that any previous chairman,” Feld said. “That created a significant bottleneck. I expect we will go back to a much more traditional [approach], where the chairman gives general direction or even asks the bureaus their opinions first, rather than wait before the chairman decides on a course of action.” Feld said over time, differences tend to emerge between the commissioners and deals must be cut. In the end, Genachowski “is going to have to make a choice about whether to favor a more deliberative and collaborative process and not achieve everything that he wants to achieve, or whether he tries to take a more direct approach,” he said. “A lot of times the questions are not so cut and dried and there are a lot of ways to go. A chairman may decide to go one direction for political reasons and that may be contrary to the recommendations of the staff. At the end of the day, the chairman has to be the chairman.”

“I think it’s a good way to convey to practitioners before the FCC that the bureaus are once again in the mix and are once again involved in policy development,” said an industry attorney and former FCC official. He said he’s less thrilled with the documentation that outsiders must provide, including on meetings with bureau and other staff, when they seek meetings with commission legal advisers. Getting the information together can take hours, the attorney said. “But within the bureaus there is a significant amount of expertise, and if you let them do their jobs they generally will propose good policy.”

Genachowski’s strong emphasis on broadband -- sometimes to the exclusion of other communications issues considered less time sensitive - probably will continue through this month and possibly into September, said some FCC and industry officials. Meanwhile, new bureau chiefs are still settling into their jobs. Two commissioners, Meredith Baker and Mignon Clyburn, will also have to be brought up to speed on various items.

“This is an Obamaesque approach he’s taking: Not a lot of leaks, very methodological, moving ahead on all fronts,” Andrew Schwartzman, the Media Access Project’s president, said of Genachowski. “The focus on broadband is going to make it hard to maintain momentum on a lot of other fronts. That’s the challenge.”

“I don’t blame Julius for focusing” on broadband for now, said broadcast lawyer Henry Rivera of Wiley Rein, a Democratic FCC commissioner in the 1980s. “I think what we're all seeing is, this all broadband all the time.”

The FCC is reportedly preparing a truth-in-billing item for the August meeting. Commission officials and industry lawyers expect other items to be circulated after Labor Day. But Rivera and others who've met recently with Genachowski said he seems ready to tackle other items sooner if needed. Broadcast lawyer David Oxenford of Davis Wright said it took Kevin Martin some time to begin dealing with substantive issues after he became chairman in 2005. The first commissioner meeting under Martin in May 2005 consisted only of a report on Universal Service Fund management. “No matter how long you've been involved in the issues, getting in there and making sure things reflect your priorities takes some time,” said Oxenford.

At a meeting last week with members of the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council, Genachowski asked them to get back to his office with items that could be taken up quickly, Rivera said. “I think he'd like to move on some stuff if he can move on it with a minimum of collateral damage and work,” he said. “If you said ‘look, you can do this and just wave your hand over it and it’s done,’ I think he would do that.”

Genachowski “has been on the job barely a month and is still getting staff in place and waiting for the full complement of commissioners,” said President Curt Stamp of the Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance. “Given the vast array of issues under the FCC’s jurisdiction, it makes sense that any new chairman would take the time to get his arms around those issues before laying out bold positions and statement out of the starting gate.”

It would be surprising if Genachowski “tipped his hand” this early, a telecom industry official said. The chairman’s policy philosophy probably won’t become clear until the FCC releases a major decision, the official said. It’s common for a new chairman to take time to get the lay of the land and get up to speed on the issues, said another industry source. His positions will probably become clearer in the fall, after Congress comes back, the source said.