House Republicans Plan More FCC Transparency Measures, Upcoming Hearing
House Republicans unveiled drafts of a trio of FCC transparency bills Tuesday, associating the bills with the Communications Act overhaul they're pursuing. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and Commissioner Mike O’Rielly will testify at a Communications Subcommittee hearing on FCC reauthorization and transparency April 30 at 2 p.m.
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“We’ve got a trifecta for transparency,” Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., said in a statement, calling them excellent steps in the proposed rewrite of telecom law. “At our hearing next week, Chairman Wheeler and Commissioner O’Rielly’s testimony will help shine the spotlight on current commission practices as we take a look at three common sense proposals to improve transparency at the FCC. At the end of the day, more transparency is always better.”
Walden and other Republicans, such as House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, have pressed for such transparency legislation. They seized on the topic of FCC transparency in the months leading up to the FCC’s net neutrality order. Three different GOP members of the Communications Subcommittee introduced the different measures.
Rep. Renee Ellmers, R-N.C., is responsible for a draft that would require the FCC “to publish on its Internet website changes to the rules of the Commission not later than 24 hours after adoption,” its text said. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., circulated a draft requiring the agency “to publish on the website of the Commission documents to be voted on by the Commission,” no later than 24 hours after the FCC circulates a given item and not later than 21 days before its vote. Subcommittee Vice Chairman Bob Latta, R-Ohio, advanced a draft item calling for “identification and description on the website of the [FCC] of items to be decided on authority delegated by the Commission,” according to its text.
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., has generally backed House GOP efforts on FCC process overhaul and mentioned FCC reauthorization legislation as the vehicle for addressing those issues before considering the broader Communications Act overhaul process, which he also still wants to pursue. Walden and Thune both announced intentions to reauthorize the FCC formally early this year. It hasn't happened since 1990.
“We’re looking at an FCC reauthorization bill, which would be primarily process and budget and transparency issues,” Thune told us at the Capitol Tuesday. “It’s obviously, to pass, going to have big bipartisan support, so I’m hoping we’ll find a critical mass to get that going. We’ve got stuff that we have to do first, and right now everything’s kind of caught up in the whole net neutrality discussion. But I think there’s an opportunity there to do something later this year, maybe late summer, maybe fall.” That timeline fits with what Thune first predicted of FCC reauthorization early this year in an interview (see 1502030039). “I would say an FCC reauthorization that’s more narrowly focused is probably more likely to move,” Thune said.
Walden has already released an FCC reauthorization draft, which provoked outcry from Democrats. Thune has released no draft and earlier this year told us he sees the House language simply as a starting point, not a final product (see 1503190048). Walden’s reauthorization draft doesn't address the transparency provisions in the latest trio of measures.
"If we're going to have a serious conversation about improving governmental transparency, terrific,” Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood said by email. “In that case, I have to wonder about the sincerity of bills that single out a particular federal agency rather than making comprehensive proposals for administrative procedure reform. It's especially curious when such agency-specific transparency concerns seem to materialize out of thin air for some Members of Congress only when they are displeased with the substance of the decisions reached by that agency.”
Wood, in the name of transparency, said he’s interested in knowing who has met with and lobbied lawmakers before their bills and discussions drafts are introduced. “That's the part of the FCC process that is far and away more transparent than anything Congress does,” Wood said. “I can look at the ex parte record to learn not just who's meeting with the Commission but what they're saying. Surely this unqualified praise and enthusiasm for transparency doesn't apply only to the executive branch, does it?”
FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, a Republican, commended the measures. "The American people are too often left in the dark when it comes to agency decision-making," Pai said in a statement. "In the meantime, favored special interests are able to gain access to 'non-public' information. This is wrong."