House Budget Committee Plan Calls for NTIA to 'Consolidate' Into FCC
The House Budget Committee called Tuesday for NTIA to “consolidate” into the FCC as part of its FY 2018 plan. The proposal, the subject of a Wednesday committee markup, calls for FCC/NTIA as part of a series of consolidations of…
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Department of Commerce agencies whose functions are “better suited at other agencies.” Commerce and its agencies “are rife with waste, abuse and duplication,” the House Budget proposal blueprint said. Communications industry lobbyists questioned the viability of absorbing NTIA into the FCC. “The desire to find efficiencies is sound but there are constitutional imperatives that require the spectrum management function to remain exclusively under the executive branch,” said American Continental Group senior adviser John Kneuer, former NTIA administrator. There have been repeated calls for telecom policy to be consolidated at the FCC, but “the reality is that NTIA's spectrum functions cannot go into an independent agency,” a telecom lobbyist said. “The FCC can't dictate or regulate the Department of Defense or other executive branch departments on their spectrum uses. So if you merged NTIA into the FCC, you'd be leaving spectrum behind and essentially shutting down its policy functions.” Joining FCC and NTIA would be a “pretty dramatic” move, likely encountering opposition from NTIA administrator nominee David Redl when the Senate votes to confirm him as expected, another communications sector lobbyist said. A vote on Redl's nomination was delayed at the request of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, but is expected to be on the docket at the Senate Commerce Committee's next markup session (see 1706280027 and 1706280061).