Inouye Vows to Overhaul FCC

Rockefeller Also Trashes Federal Communications Commission at Senate Commerce Committee Oversight Hearing

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 12/13/2007 2:48:00 PM

Senate Commerce Committee chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) Thursday pledged an overhaul of the Federal Communications Commission in 2008, including potentially the terms of commissioners.

That came in a Senate Commerce Committee oversight hearing Thursday at which a stern Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W. Va.) said he thought the committee's time would be well spent in an election year when it would be tough to get other things done working on an FCC-reauthorization bill that would address complaints about the current FCC process.

Those complaints, leveled by various senators during the hearing, included lack of transparency, politically motivated suppression of studies, insufficient opportunity for public comment and others.

Rockefeller said that rather than serving the public, the FCC was instead undertaking a one-way deregulatory policy that shortchanged consumers. He added that he feared that the FCC was more concerned with policies that serve the needs of the companies that they regulate than it was with protecting the public interest. "We can't allow that to happen," he said.

Rockefeller said the committee should develop a reauthorization bill that deals with the commissioners' terms and processes and ways to make it a better advocate for consumers. "I can assure you it will be done," Inouye said.