Thune Aiming for Fast-Track Push 'This Month' on FCC Nominee Starks
The Senate Commerce Committee is gearing up to move quickly on FCC nominee Geoffrey Starks, including a likely June 20 confirmation hearing, communications lobbyists and Capitol Hill officials told us. The committee is eyeing a fast process for Starks, as expected (see 1804060049), in hope of also confirming Commissioner Brendan Carr to a full five-year term. President Donald Trump nominated Starks, Enforcement Bureau assistant chief, this month to succeed now-former Commissioner Mignon Clyburn for a term ending June 30, 2022 (see 1806010072).
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 going to try and move [Starks] this month, obviously, and try to get [him] and Carr across the finish line,” Commerce Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., told us. Committee staff were seriously planning for a June 20 hearing date for Starks, and telecom lobbyists said the timeline depends on how quickly the White House can submit the entirety of Starks' paperwork. Senate Commerce is aiming to package Starks with other nominees for a hearing no matter the date, the lobbyists said. Senate Commerce didn't comment.
Senate Communications Subcommittee ranking member Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, told us he wasn't clear on the date but next week “sounds about right” given Senate Commerce priorities. Schatz and Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., told us they are planning to meet with Starks in the near future. Starks is scheduling meetings with other senators, lobbyists said. Schatz said his top focus for the meeting will be Starks' views on net neutrality and the FCC order rescinding 2015 rules, which took effect Monday (see 1806110054).
Markey said his questions for Starks will run the gamut of pressing telecom policy issues. “There's a whole range of issues that go right to the heart of” the policy area, including “competition and privacy,” that “I've been working on,” he said. Starks should be preparing to answer questions on a range of thorny policy issues, including net neutrality and media ownership policies, communications sector lobbyists said. Commerce is “really smoothing the way” to get Starks before the committee, but because he has never appeared before a Hill panel, he should expect a probe from both parties, one lobbyist said.
Schatz, Markey and other lawmakers said they haven't formed an opinion of Starks, which two communications sector lobbyists said was indicative of his status as an unknown to telecom policy stakeholders (see 1806040067). Former Commissioner Robert McDowell, now with Cooley, and several industry lobbyists cited Starks' lack of a public persona as a substantial asset as he goes through the confirmation process. Now-retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter “was also a relative unknown” at the time of his confirmation process in 1990 and that status “makes it easier,” McDowell said, noting he, too, was relatively unknown to the Senate when he was confirmed in 2006. "If it's all quiet," McDowell said, "that's good news for” Starks.