The FCC will eliminate remaining traces of the Fairness Doctrine...
The FCC will eliminate remaining traces of the Fairness Doctrine from agency rules, Chairman Julius Genachowski said this week. “I fully support deleting the Fairness Doctrine and related provisions from the Code of Federal Regulations, so that there can be…
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no mistake that what has been a dead letter is truly dead,” Genachowski wrote House Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich, on Monday. Upton had asked Genachowski to kill four FCC rules in the code related to the doctrine (CD June 1 p16). Responding to Genachowski on Wednesday, Upton and Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., asked the FCC chairman “when precisely” the rules would be eliminated and if he had support from other commissioners. They sought a response by Friday. Also in Genachowski’s letter, he said the agency has killed 49 outdated regulations and targeted “25 sets of unnecessary data collections for elimination.” He attached a list of existing statutory mandates in the Communications Act that “appear unnecessary.” The House Republicans said they would include Genachowski’s suggestions in future “clean up” legislation. Upton and Walden also asked Genachowski when the FCC would submit a plan to the Office of Management and Budget for eliminating other outdated rules in accordance with President Barack Obama’s January executive order. As an independent agency, the commission isn’t required to follow the executive order, but Upton and Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., have proposed requiring such compliance (CD June 6 p8).