FCC, FTC Nominees Still in Senate Limbo Due to Government Shutdown

"I regret that I had to call this hearing today,” Rockefeller said Friday, lamenting the “human tragedies” the committee is able to focus on under its jurisdiction. At the hearing, he cited the number of furloughed employees “not there” at different agencies, including the FCC and FTC.

Senate Commerce didn’t address a pending vote on Michael O'Rielly, nominee for Republican FCC commissioner. The committee held a hearing on O'Rielly in mid-September and had planned to vote on O'Rielly and Democratic FTC nominee Terrell McSweeny at an executive session Oct. 3, which was postponed following the shutdown. Observers in mid-September had speculated that both O'Rielly and Tom Wheeler, nominee for FCC chairman, were on track for Senate confirmation by the time Congress broke for Columbus Day recess in mid-October (CD Sept 13 p1). Columbus Day is Monday, and Congress normally goes into recess that week. But the House is expected to be in session due to the shutdown and uncertainty over the U.S. raising its debt ceiling. The Senate has votes planned through the weekend. Senate Commerce Committee ranking member John Thune, R-S.D., said at O'Rielly’s hearing (CD Sept 19 p1) that he hoped for a full FCC by Columbus Day recess. The Senate Commerce press secretary -- normally furloughed but back in the office Friday for the hearing -- declined comment on any rescheduling timing.

Senate Commerce likely could proceed with a vote if it wanted to, Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood told us. “The unwillingness to reschedule it now is based, if I had to guess, on both the reality and the appearance of the shutdown,” Wood said. “Members don’t necessarily have time or staffing for ordinary business, and also may not want to look like they're focusing on issues that fall outside the bounds of this self-inflicted crisis."

Before the shutdown, Senate Commerce was considering an off-the-floor markup of O'Rielly, said a former Republican Senate staffer who is closely watching the process. He said such a markup is now a challenge because the committee would have to have a quorum. The Senate then considered moving Wheeler and O'Rielly as a hotline item, which would skip the committee markup, and consider it as a unanimous consent item on the floor of the Senate, the ex-staffer said. But two senators were objecting -- Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mark Pryor, D-Ark., due to concerns over O'Rielly’s partisanship, and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, over Wheeler’s interpretation of FCC authority regarding political disclosure, the former staffer said. Cruz made his concerns known this summer and a spokeswoman said they remained concerns in September. Pryor worried at O'Rielly’s Senate Commerce hearing that O'Rielly would not cooperate with Democrats. No unanimous consent item can advance if a single senator objects. The Senate Commerce press secretary was not able to comment on the accuracy of such a unanimous consent push in the Senate.

The FCC is suffering due to the shutdown, consumer advocates said Friday. Rachel Weintraub, legislative director of the Consumer Federation of America, in her Senate Commerce testimony (http://1.usa.gov/1c9qDYJ) said “work has been delayed on the highly anticipated spectrum auctions” and “the FCC has ceased maintaining its online systems, leaving the public unable to access the resources, public comments and consumer education materials available on its website.” Weintraub’s group joined others including Consumers Union, National Consumers League, Consumer Action, National Consumer Law Center, Public Citizen, National Association of Consumer Advocates and U.S. Public Interest Research Group to send lawmakers a letter Friday outlining the effects on consumers.

One page of Rockefeller’s 29-page report is devoted to the FTC and describes how about 925 of its 1,178 workers have been furloughed. “It could be 2,900 pages long,” Rockefeller said at the hearing. The FTC, with its focus on telemarketing fraud, privacy and identity protection, among other issues, isn’t receiving information from states, consumers or other sources or enforcing the rules against “bad actors” and isn’t conducting consumer protection awareness outreach, said the report. The agency’s Consumer Sentinel Database is also down, the report said. The Coast Guard contracts with telecom companies and other groups “to provide for and sustain mission readiness in the field,” with Coast Guard procurement and contracting work largely “either been curtailed or suspended since the shutdown,” the report said.

Most people in America “take for granted” that people will prosecute “fraudsters and the con artists” and other kinds of issues, said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., hoping for “a greater appreciation” among people for these processes. Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., acting as ranking member for the hearing, and Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., criticized the ongoing effects of the shutdown. Thune pushed for the Senate to pass some of the continuing resolutions passed by the House to end the shutdown for certain agencies, a process Democrats have called piecemeal and object to. “We have to fund it all,” Rockefeller said.

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said CEOs should go to Congress and pressure resolution of the economic stranglehold, as President Barack Obama has also asked this month. Nelson described meetings with two CEOs who were “not ready” to do so when questioning Aerospace Industries Association CEO Marion Blakey. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson released a statement slamming any official that would risk default last week (CD Oct 7 p9). “You need to put a fire under your executives,” Nelson said.(jhendel@warren-news.com)