Wheeler To Tell Congress Rate-of-Return Order Likely Will Be Adopted This Week

Wheeler projects the bipartisan rate-of-return overhaul order circulating now will be approved within days, as expected (see 1603110073). “I hope and expect the Commission will approve this proposal with a bipartisan vote this week,” he will say. “This new blueprint will complement the FCC’s other reforms to the Connect America Fund to ensure rural communities are not left behind,” Commissioner Mignon Clyburn will testify.

Commissioner Ajit Pai will lament what he sees as partisan problems with the agency and point to a recent incident involving the rate-of-return overhaul item. Wheeler’s office “just last week denied a request from me and Commissioner [Mike] O’Rielly (who played a leading role in creating the plan) to release that plan to the public before a vote,” Pai will testify. “The Commission has already had to reconsider the Universal Service Transformation Order seven separate times because it adopted a plan without full input from stakeholders. We shouldn’t repeat that mistake here. And more generally, rural Americans deserve to know what we’re proposing to do before we do it.”

Wheeler will emphasize the importance of his spectrum frontiers item and the NPRM on broadband privacy regulation and order on Lifeline overhaul, both set for a March 31 FCC vote. “To be clear, this NPRM is narrowly focused on personal information collected by network providers,” Wheeler will tell lawmakers of the privacy item. “It does not cover the privacy policies of websites, which is the jurisdiction of the Federal Trade Commission.” The FCC is “encouraged by the strong interest that we have seen both from broadcasters interested in selling their spectrum and the broad assortment of parties interested in buying it,” Wheeler said of the auction, to start March 29. “To ensure preservation of service for broadcast viewers and timely network deployment, we have been focused on post-auction planning for over a year, including the release of the draft relocation reimbursement form and a reimbursement cost catalog, and we’ve already begun to pivot and to accelerate our planning for the post-auction transition.”

“Our agenda continues to be guided by the priorities I laid out at the beginning of my Chairmanship: facilitating dynamic technological change to enable economic growth and ensuring that our communications networks reflect our core values like universal access, public safety, and consumer protection,” Wheeler will say. “Preserving and promoting competition remains the underlying foundation of our agenda.” He will also cite the agency’s focus on network resiliency and pirate radio.

“As you know, Commissioner O'Rielly has been a leader on these issues,” Wheeler will say of pirate radio. “Earlier this month, all five Commissioners signed a letter addressed to local officials as well as real estate and advertiser groups whose members may provide support to pirates, whether knowingly or unknowingly. The letter and a separate Enforcement Advisory explained the very real harms caused by pirate radio and asked those groups for their assistance in addressing the problem. But we could use Congress' help here. We need to ensure that there are legal consequences for the landlords who look the other way because helping pirates puts money in their pockets. Congress could make it illegal to aid or abet pirate radio operations. Doing so would put pirates on the run and help us put them out of business.”

O’Rielly plans to repeat concerns about FCC process. “Systemic problems with FCC processes have harmed the agency’s ability to fully and fairly consider important policy proposals,” he will say, according to his testimony. “Transparency continues to be treated as merely a buzzword, parties engaging with the Commission are treated unfairly, and the agency minimizes accountability in many instances by delegating decisions to the Bureaus that should be made by the Commissioners. The FCC Process Reform Act currently awaiting Senate action would be a step in the right direction, more probably needs to be done on the legislative side, because it is becoming clear that no one should expect the current Commission to take any initiative on its own in this regard.” Pai will also urge Congress to advance the FCC Process Reform Act and Consolidated Reporting Act and slam what he judged lack of progress from Wheeler’s process task force. “This has proven to be nothing more than a Potemkin village designed to persuade Congress that the agency is ‘doing something’ on process reform, and hence that legislation and oversight aren’t needed,” Pai will say.

Clyburn will highlight a recent broadband health connectivity public notice. “As the future of healthcare is increasingly dependent on broadband-enabled technologies, I believe this item will highlight those necessary elements that are essential to help our nation move forward,” she will say. “I am closely examining the public notice and look forward to seeing the record that develops to learn more about how the FCC may be able to help.”

Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel will stress the need for action on what she calls the “homework gap” (see 1603210040) in the digital divide and also on testing the 5 GHz band. “So now we need to work with our colleagues at the Department of Transportation and Department of Commerce to get this testing underway,” she will testify of the upper 5 GHz. “We also have unlicensed opportunities in the guard bands in the 600 MHz band and millimeter wave spectrum at 64-71 GHz. We need to seize them.”