House Republican Leader Takes Aim at 70/70

Boehner Critical of FCC Chairman Martin’s Plans to Regulate Cable

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 11/26/2007 3:20:00 PM

House Republican Leader John Boehner (Ohio) weighed in on the Federal Communications Commission's Nov. 27 meeting plans, a subject of increasing scrutiny from the Hill.

In a letter last week to FCC chairman Kevin Martin, Boehner took aim at Martin's suggestion that the cable industry had met the so-called 70/70 test, which could trigger new cable regulation.

"The FCC may even try to invoke authority over the cable industry under an excessively broad reading of the 70/70 provision from the 1984 Cable Act," he wrote. "This provision was not intended to grant the FCC carte blanche to impose other types of regulation."

The provision does empower the FCC to impose new regulations to foster program diversity, but there is a debate over whether that applies strictly to leased channel capacity or is a broad mandate. Boehner backed the narrow reading, saying, "It was drafted more than 20 years ago as a mechanism to respond to decreases in sources of content, and that clearly is not a problem today."

Saying that he had asked ranking Republican House Commerce Committee member -- and former chairman -- Joe Barton (Texas) to keep an eye on whether he was treating all of the industries fairly, Boehner said there was more competition than ever before; that Congress, the FCC and the administration had spurred those deregulatory policies; and that "now is not the time to embark on regulatory proposals that run contrary to Congress' intent."

A number of Republican legislators have expressed concern about Republican Martin's apparent regulatory bent toward cable.