Bush to Nominate Tate for FCC, Renominate Copps
President Bush will nominate FCC Comr. Copps to serve out a 5-year FCC term expiring June 30, 2010, and Republican Tenn. regulator Deborah Tate for the rest of a 5-year term expiring June 30, 2007, the White House announced Wed. Democrat Copps is a reappointment. Tate replaces departed FCC Chmn. Michael Powell. FCC Comr. Abernathy’s position remains to be filled. Her term expired in June 2004, and she must leave office when Congress adjourns for the year. White House aide Richard Russell was originally picked for that slot, but Senate Commerce Committee Chmn. Stevens (R-Alaska) said he wants to search for another candidate (CD Nov 9 p1).
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An industry source criticized the White House for not filling Abernathy’s slot. The source, who asked not to be identified, said adding would leave the Commission with a 2-2 Republican-Democratic split because Abernathy is expected to leave as soon as another Republican comes to the Commission. Leaving the FCC evenly split “may even empower Commissioner Copps,” who has used the Commission’s current 2-2 split to gain concessions in several recently- passed orders. “The White House has ignored this agency for too long,” the source said.
FCC Chmn. Martin said Tate would be “an excellent addition to the Commission” because she has “a distinguished career in state government” and has worked closely with the FCC in her role as TRA dir. He also praised Copps, saying he respects the commissioner’s “insight and thoughtfulness on issues.”
Jeffrey Carlisle, ex-FCC Wireline Bureau Chief, said he was impressed when Tate invited him to a panel to discuss VoIP regulatory issues in April 2004 because the issue was still new. The “very forward-looking” panel included a wide range of people from industries, finance, education and elsewhere , said Carlisle, now Lenovo vp. He said Tate is “one of the best choices the President could have made” because she’s “smart on the issues, listens to people and has experience in government and as a regulator.”
NARUC Gen. Counsel Brad Ramsay called Tate “very respected in the regulatory community and Capitol Hill.” Ramsay said he met Tate, who has been very active in NARUC, just before she became a TRA comr. Tate called NARUC to ask about the state regulatory process to prepare for her new job. He sent her volumes of information on telecom, energy and other regulatory matters. She read it all, he said. “That’s the kind of person you want to pick,” said Ramsay.
Tate Sees IP Regulation as State-Federal Partnership
Tate, who was appointed to the Tenn. Regulatory Authority (TRA) in 2002, urged the FCC last year to view regulation of IP-enabled services as a state-federal joint venture. “An integral part of the new regulatory program I propose is to allow states to do what they do well, such as enforcing consumer protection rules, resolving customer complaints, and ensuring access to the disabled,” she told the FCC in comments filed in May 2004 in the IP-Enabled Services docket. “Such an approach allows the FCC to determine forward-thinking national policy issues in a partnership with the states, and allows states to provide expertise on the local level,” she said. The comments were filed as her own views during a period when she was TRA chmn.
Tate said the FCC and the states should “reevaluate our overall regulatory approach for all carriers” and focus on “where and why the government should intervene in the market,” rather than undertaking a “myopic discussion of how to intrude in the market based upon regulatory convention or history.” Tate said “it would be unthinkable for the FCC to preempt states in a manner that renders our dispute resolution expertise idle.” She proposed that IP providers voluntarily provide information to state commissions about their service and billing dispute process, something cellular providers do in several states. In Tenn., regulatory staff meets frequently with mobile providers to share information about improved consumer services, which is useful to both sides since consumers often go to the TRA with complaints.
Touching on another issue, Tate encouraged the FCC “to establish a uniform intercarrier compensation arrangement that not only recognizes that a ‘minute is a minute’ but also that a ‘packet is a packet.'” She said she “strongly” believed “all traffic exchanged between carriers, regardless of jurisdiction or type… must be exchanged at a uniform rate to be negotiated between individual carriers without the distortion of past regulatory policies.”
On a Congressional Internet Caucus panel earlier this year, Tate urged Congress to avoid drafting Telecom Act updates that reflect only current technology because flexibility is needed in the constantly changing communications field.
Tate is chmn. of NARUC’s Washington Action Committee and is a member of the Federal-State Joint Board on Advanced Telecom Services. She’s an attorney who worked as senior policy advisor to ex-Tenn. Govs. Lamar Alexander and Don Sundquist.