New FCC Reports Act Would Preserve Sec. 706 Authority

By John Eggerton
( Broadcasting & Cable )
published

According to House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), she and house majority whip and Communications Subcommittee member Steve Scalise (R-La.) plan to introduce a managers' amendment—essentially a substitute version of the bill—to the Federal Communications Commission Consolidated Reporting Act of 2015 that makes clear the consolidation of the reports, including the FCC's Sec. 706 report, does not impact the "explicit grant of broadband authority" under 706.

That will come in a markup of the bill Wednesday (Feb. 4) in the House Communications Subcommittee.

Elsewhere members of the committee, as well as Senate Commerce Committee chairman John Thune (R-S.D.), have been working on a network neutrality bill that would both block reclassification of Internet access under Title II and "clarify" that Sec. 706 was not a broad brand of broadband regulatory authority.

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John Eggerton
John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.