Grassley Seeks Meeting With Exiting Top FCC Staffer

Continues to push FCC for info related to LightSquared's waiver process

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 1/26/2012 4:47:45 PM

Sen. Charles Grassley continued his push for FCC info this week, making a direct appeal to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski to make Paul de Sa, outgoing Chief of the Office of Strategic Plans & Policy meet with him.

De Sa, who is exiting the commission next month, has been involved in the LightSquared waiver process that Grassley has been seeking info from the FCC about.

It was what he saw as the FCC's reluctance to make that information available that prompted his threat to hold up the nominations of two new commissioners, nominations that have yet to get a full Senate vote.

In a letter to the chairman, Grassley (R-Iowa), said that despite the chairman's Oct. 28 letter saying he would make staff available to discuss LightSquared with Grassley staffers, he was told Jan. 24 that de Sa was not available. 

"It would be preferable if you would encourage Mr. de Sa to cooperate with my inquiry before he resigns from government service," said Grassley. "Therefore, please make him available for an interview with my staff before Jan. 31, 2012."

Grassley has repeatedly sought internal and external FCC communications on the waiver process, concerned that the FCC "rushed approval of the LightSquared project without adequately exploring what turned out to be  widespread concerns of interference with the Global Positioning System devices widely used by the military, first responders, aviation, precision agriculture, and consumer navigation."

An FCC spokesperson had no comment at press time, but the commission has made some documents available online pursuant to FOIA requests and has reiterated that its waiver to LightSquared, which is on hold, will not happen until GPS issues are resolved. But the chairman has also declined to provide documents to Grassley, pointing out the request did not come from the chairman of one of the relevant oversight committees. Grassley is ranking member of one of them, however, the Senate Judiciary Committee.