On September 17, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology will hear from all five members of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), including Chairman Ajit Pai, in a hearing titled “Trump FCC: Four Years of Lost Opportunities.”
It is regrettable when Congressional committees spend more time in hearings asserting a particular worldview than asking reasonable questions of agency officials. Lost in lawmakers’ statements and soliloquies is the opportunity to conduct fundamental oversight over an independent regulatory agency.
At National Taxpayers Union (NTU), the nation’s oldest taxpayer advocacy organization, we have worked with the FCC on several of its recent initiatives, many of which have brought numerous benefits to consumers and taxpayers. Perhaps we can save the Subcommittee some time by helping them identify some of the opportunities they claim are “lost.”
Telehealth: Access to telemedicine services has become more important than ever during the COVID-19 pandemic. Both Congress and a number of federal agencies deserve credit for easing the rapid transition that millions of patients and doctors have had to make since March, from in-person visits to virtual ones. The FCC has played a crucial role here, with a $200-million COVID-19 Telehealth Program that was first made possible by the CARES Act. As FCC noted in July, when it finished allocating the $200 million in supplemental funding, “the agency has approved 539 funding applications in 47 states plus Washington, D.C. and Guam” - all in a matter of months.
Restoring Internet Freedom Order: Chairman Pai’s FCC played a leading role in rolling back Title II regulations imposed on internet service providers (ISPs) by a previous FCC regime. As we wrote in June 2018, “The Title II framework imposed in 2015 tried to fit a regulatory regime designed for Great Depression-era telephone monopolies onto the 21st century internet, and the results have been disastrous. At a time when other countries have blazed ahead with innovative next generation networks, U.S. investment in new technology and network buildout plummeted. … Now that the Title II regulations have been rescinded, new innovation and technology can flourish.” Despite dire predictions about slower and less accessible internet, in the years since the Restoring Internet Freedom Order consumers have seen prices for the fastest broadband speeds cut nearly in half (with faster speeds than in 2015). Even the most popular broadband plans have offered faster speeds (by about 16 percent) and lower prices (by about 20 percent). NTU has continued to applaud the 2018 Order as it withstands challenges in court, and we have urged Congress to “stop this swinging pendulum by codifying into law an internet free of outdated regulations.”
Spectrum Policy: Over the past few years, the FCC has been more forward-looking than ever when it comes to making more of the spectrum band available for pro-taxpayer and pro-consumer purposes. From the Commission’s 2019 vote to “reallocate underused 45 megahertz of the 5.9 GHz band for unlicensed uses,” to its planned 2020 vote to make 100 megahertz of spectrum available for commercial 5G use, the FCC’s actions will help ensure that America remains a global leader in the development of new technologies.
Fee Relief: In August 2019, the Commission “approved a long awaited rule regarding the ability for municipalities to levy ‘in-kind’ franchise fees on cable operators,” bringing some abusive municipal revenue-raising schemes to heel and “knock[ing] down barriers that delay the deployment of broadband.”
Cross-Media Ownership: Earlier in Chairman Pai’s tenure as FCC Chair, the Commission “voted to change the 42-year-old cross-media ownership rule that bars broadcast media outlets from also owning newspapers, and vice-versa, in the same market.” NTU wrote at the time that “[m]odernizing the long outdated media ownership rules creates an environment where local news organizations are better positioned to not only stay in business, but also compete and thrive in a rapidly evolving and expanding media ecosystem.”
This is just a slice of the good work the Commission has done over the past several years. Challenges lie ahead: we recently urged the FCC to reject the Department of Commerce’s petition for the Commission to make several changes to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the law that created the modern internet. And we hope the Commission will oppose any and all efforts to create a nationalized 5G network that would put the federal government in charge of the transition to a faster internet.
Nevertheless, the Commission has been in good hands for some time, and has created numerous opportunities not only for consumers and taxpayers to save money but also to benefit from the rapid development and deployment of 21st-century technologies. We’re sorry that the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee could not find these so-called “lost” opportunities before launching a presumptive hearing.