FCC Inviting Diversity Committee Members; USF Order Coming ‘Soon,’ Lazarus Says
Invitations to serve on the FCC’s diversity committee will be made shortly, as work on the Universal Service Fund “soon” will culminate in a comprehensive order, Chief of Staff Eddie Lazarus told minority and women communications entrepreneurs Friday. A day earlier, Commissioner Robert McDowell told the Minority Media and Telecom Council conference (CD July 22 p7) he worried about delays in changing USF to also fund broadband and in rejuvenating the Committee on Diversity for Communications in the Digital Age. Chairman Julius Genachowski’s staff told the Federal State USF Joint Board last week that the order on USF and intercarrier compensation (ICC) will be ready for the October meeting, an FCC official told us.
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.
"We're driving very quickly to the finish line,” on that order, Lazarus said Friday, and “in the midst of a very broad, comprehensive reform of this system.” The outcome “will be very fair” and will “safeguard those other aspects of the system which drive opportunities to low-income communities and our children,” such as E-rate, Lifeline and Link-Up, he said. “We have to look at the Universal Service Fund and ICC altogether.” Given the “inherent subsidies between the urban and wireless users that flow to the other stakeholders in the system,” the commission eyes “comprehensive reform” where “it’s going to be very important that the system balance out” various considerations, Lazarus said.
Changing USF and ICC is tough going, Lazarus acknowledged in a Q-and-A. “The whole kit and caboodle is hard. This is why it’s been hanging fire at the commission” for about a decade, he added. The regulator has to balance the interests of various USF stakeholders and consider financial analyses of the fund, Lazarus said. It’s “an enormous amount of money here and many stakeholders involved. But we're going closer. We expect to get to an order soon.” Asked by a communications lawyer in the audience if it would be in 2011, he said “absolutely.” He had noted that the high-cost part of the fund is about $4.5 billion annually.
Lazarus addressed what he indicated were some misconceptions about the diversity committee and the voluntary auction of TV spectrum for wireless broadband, which the FCC seeks legislation for. “I want to make clear two things: It has been rechartered. That notice already is in the Federal Register” for the committee, Lazarus said. “And the invitations will be going out in the next week or two. So that is well advanced, or imminent.” The committee this time will have a “particular focus” on “the issues that are central to this conference,” including access to capital and small businesses, Lazarus added.
Rural Utilities Service Administrator Jonathan Adelstein said tongue-in-cheek that “everyone needs access to capital -- even the federal government,” as the U.S. debt ceiling is close to being reached. The agency’s work on broadband deployment is “far from done,” and it’s now “managing implementation” of previously funded work and seeking to make new loans for such service, Adelstein said. Lazarus separately noted that incentive auctions “may be the only item where those two budgets intersect” -- that of President Barack Obama and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis.
Lazarus sought support from the MMTC audience for the voluntary incentive auction, after there have been “some concerns about the potential result.” The FCC sees it “as an opportunity” for owners of small stations or for small broadcasters “that may be struggling in the current economic climate” to get money from the auction, he said. “It isn’t necessary to auction all of one’s broadcast spectrum.” Sharing a 6 MHz channel after an auction “would lower operating costs, because operating costs would be shared across more than one broadcast outlet,” Lazarus said. “We think it’s an idea that this community ought to rally behind. Because it presents an opportunity that’s not there right now” to “monetize that spectrum,” and it’s not something MMTC conference attendees ought to fear, he said.
Lazarus and a lawyer representing low-power TV stations disagreed on what might happen to such outlets post-auction. During Q-and-A, Peter Tannenwald of Fletcher Heald asked what will happen to the stations “when they're all wiped out and their businesses are eradicated.” Lazarus responded that “I don’t agree with the premise of that question that their businesses will all be wiped out.” It’s too early in the process of seeking such auctions for the FCC to know exactly how low-power TV will be affected, and “we don’t even have the authority to consider the question” without the spectrum legislation, Lazarus said. “As we go through the rulemaking process … we will obviously be taking the interests of the low-power stations into account."
The FCC is “in the midst of” a media ownership review, Lazarus noted. The work on the review has included a study on minority media ownership, he said. On last month’s appeals court remand of some rules including on diversity from the last review, Lazarus said “we of course will be taking that direction from the court very seriously as we move forward with that later on this year.”