Many state public utility commissions (PUCs) have been reluctant ...
Many state public utility commissions (PUCs) have been reluctant to support the United Church of Christ (UCC) in its effort “to ensure corporate character among telecom companies who have licenses to operate on behalf of the public interest,” Rev.…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
Robert Chase, dir. of the UCC Office of Communication, said in an interview: “We have one legislator so far who has written a letter in support of this effort -- Congressman [Richard] Burr (Rep.-N.C.),” who also is a vice chmn. of the House Commerce Committee. “We are looking for Sen. [Joseph] Lieberman [D-Conn.] and Congressman Dennis Kucinich [D-Ohio] to do likewise,” Chase said. He visited Washington Tues. and Wed. to meet with lawmakers and others to encourage them to join the UCC and pressure the FCC to conduct an industrywide investigation and, based on its results, open a rulemaking to prevent financial fraud. Chase expressed concerns about “egregious” behavior by WorldCom and others in the telecom industry: “Our effort is to get the FCC to take action on behalf of the public, which is now being faced with $11 billion in fraudulent misstatements. How many more billions do we need to go before the regulatory bodies are going to step up and say ‘enough'? It’s time that we put policies in place to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.” He said groups such as Urban Link, Rainbow Push, the National Council of Churches, the Communications Workers of America and others had filed letters with the FCC supporting the effort: “We are looking to extend that group of supporters.” Chase said the UCC was planning to act on both the federal and the state level (CD March 13 p10). He said he had received responses from a dozen state PUCs, including Fla., N.J., Pa. and S.C. “In many cases their initial response is to say that this lies outside our purview,” he said. However, he said D.C. PUC Comr. Anthony Rachal was “more than supportive to the point that he initiated our meeting.”