FCC Expected to Seek Comment Before Unveiling Economics Office
The FCC is expected to seek comment on structural issues before moving forward with a new Office of Economics and Data (OED), industry officials said. Chairman Ajit Pai said in April he was establishing a working group of economists and “data professionals” within the agency who will be asked to look at some basic questions about who should staff the office and how it will be structured. He said then he hoped to have it up and running this month (see 1704050047).
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The commission plans to put out a notice by mid-February asking about how OED should be structured, industry officials said. “I think they’re trying to figure out exactly how it would work,” said a lawyer. Some questions have been raised about whether some economists and data analysts would stay in the individual offices of bureaus or whether they would all be in OED, the lawyer said.
Wayne Leighton, chief FCC Office of Strategic Planning and Analysis, said in early December that "movement" toward creating OED is likely early next year (see 1712050035). “We are still studying that issue,” Pai said of OED after last week’s commissioners’ meeting. “It’s obviously very complicated.” The FCC didn't comment Monday.
One question is what to do with OSP, said a former FCC economist. OSP was started with the goal of getting better economic analysis at the agency, the former official said. Plus, some of the other bureau and office chiefs like having economists on their staffs.
Industry officials predicted early in the Pai chairmanship that Republicans would launch an FCC economics branch (see 1701310062). FCC Republicans have long stressed the importance of doing what they see as more effective cost-benefit analysis of rules before they're proposed. Pai saw an active agenda for OED when he unveiled plans in April. “I envision it providing economic analysis for rulemakings, transactions and auctions, managing the commission’s data resources and conducting longer-term research on ways to improve the commission’s policies,” he said then.
Pai and staff have been very busy for the past four or five months, culminating in last week’s vote on a net neutrality order (see 1712150049), said Randolph May, president of the Free State Foundation. “Like other organizational or personnel matters, the proposed OED has just taken a backseat to the substantive matters for a while.”