The FCC’s regulatory fee process is “based on obsolete data”...
The FCC’s regulatory fee process is “based on obsolete data” and needs to be updated, the GAO said in a study released Monday (http://xrl.us/bno8c6). On average over the past decade, the commission collected 2 percent more in regulatory fees than…
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it was required to -- about $66 million in excess fees that “cannot be used without congressional action,” the report said. The Communications Act requires the FCC to base its fees on the number of full-time equivalents that perform regulatory tasks in certain bureaus, but the commission based its 2011 regulatory fee assessments on 1998 data, the report found. “After 13 years in a rapidly changing industry, FCC has not validated the extent to which its fees correlate to its workload,” the GAO wrote, finding the agency’s practice is “inconsistent with federal guidance on user fees.” As a result, “companies in some fee categories may be subsidizing companies in others,” the report said. Due to lack of transparency -- specifically, “the limited nature of the information FCC has published on it” -- it’s difficult for the telecom industry and other stakeholders to understand and provide input on fee assessments, GAO said. It recommended the FCC look at the examples of other fee-funded regulatory agencies for guidance, such as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.