Thune Eyeing June 27 Senate Commerce Vote on FCC Nominee Starks After 'Smooth' Hearing

Thune told reporters after the hearing he’s aiming to get the Commerce vote on Starks “done next week” during a likely Wednesday executive session if the committee can process the nominee's answers to post-hearing questions in time. The aim remains to pair Starks with FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr's nomination to a full five-year term ending in 2023, which will “hopefully expedite” the timeline to get a floor vote on both nominees, Thune said. The Senate confirmed Carr last year to an abbreviated term ending this month under a deal aimed at providing a clear Republican nominee to pair with a potential Clyburn successor (see 1706290063 and 1708030060).

“I think the FCC [nominees] should move quickly” through the Senate because Democrats “are going to be anxious to move the Starks nomination along” and bring the FCC back to its full membership, Thune told reporters. A Senate Commerce vote next week on Starks would easily set up a process to confirm the nominee and Carr together this summer -- perhaps before the July 4 week recess but no later than just before the abbreviated August recess, a communications sector lobbyist told us.

Starks said if confirmed his initial focus would include promoting increased broadband connectivity, consumer and public interest protections and advancing telemedicine. Starks singled out telemedicine as having “captured my attention,” in part because his family members practice medicine in areas where telehealth options are already available. Advancing broadband telemedicine programs is “essential” to improving healthcare access, especially in rural areas and places lacking adequate numbers of healthcare practitioners, he said. Thune and Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., both cited during the hearing Starks' interest in the issue.

Thune and Senate Commerce ranking member Bill Nelson, D-Fla., voiced opposing partisan viewpoints on the current FCC. Thune urged Starks to embrace the “spirit of openness, transparency, and collaboration at the FCC” that he believes Pai has fostered since becoming chairman last year. “I have long advocated that the hyperpartisanship” under Wheeler “must come to an end,” though “I understand that not all issues before the FCC can be decided on a bipartisan basis.” Nelson, meanwhile, blasted the majority-GOP FCC for “abandoning” the commission's “statutory authority and responsibilities,” including via rescission of its 2015 net neutrality rules and changes to media ownership rules. Those actions are part of a “larger trend” that shows the FCC has “turned their backs on consumers,” Nelson said.

Starks himself tried to strike a balance between bipartisanship and taking a definitively partisan Democratic position on some policy issues. He pointedly praised Pai's transparency initiatives, such as the chairman's bid to make draft agenda items public three weeks before commissioners' meetings (see 1702020051), as collectively “an outstanding change for the good.” Starks later told Thune he defers to Congress on its “legislative priorities” for addressing net neutrality. Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., offered a glowing endorsement of Starks, noting his confirmation would mean two Kansas natives would be FCC commissioners at the same time. Pai is from Parsons, Kansas, while Starks is from Kansas City. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., also spoke during the hearing on Starks' behalf.

Starks later struck a far more partisan tone on his view of the FCC's 2015 rules, telling Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., he believed the commission under Wheeler was correct in deciding to use Communications Act Title II as a legal basis for those rules. “It enshrined the protections that everyday Americans I think have come to expect from the internet,” including bans on blocking, throttling and paid prioritization, Starks said. “Our internet economy is truly the envy of the world and it has been laid on a foundation of openness that I believe is best for the American people.” Starks later told Markey he would “very much like to look out” for the FCC's kids video rules amid the FCC's interest in potential changes to those rules. Kidvid “is a democratizing force” given its rules for educational children's content and advertising limits, which are needed “because we do know that young children and young minds are a little bit more susceptible,” Starks said.