Pai Tweaks FCC Voting, Gets Unanimous Vote on First Meeting Item
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai instituted a small process tweak, avoided questions on net neutrality and got an item unanimously approved and as expected (see 1701240071) at his first commissioners’ meeting in charge of the agency Tuesday. Pai indicated Tuesday’s item removing requirements that gave the public access to broadcast and cable facilities is part of a concerted plan to remove or update older regulations, and discussed his plans to tackle the digital divide (see 1701310033). He released few details of the FCC’s position on other issues, including set-top boxes, media ownership and net neutrality. Staff is still reviewing 23 pending items from the Tom Wheeler administration as part of the process of deciding how the FCC will handle them going forward, Pai said.
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Pai announced his first change to the way commission meetings work just before the unanimous vote on eliminating public file requirements. When polled on an item, commissioners will announce whether they are approving, concurring, approving in part, or dissenting or dissenting in part instead of issuing the traditional aye or nay, he said. The change will lead to less confusion about how each commissioner is voting, Pai said, calling the move a “small process reform.” Since Tuesday’s vote was unanimously approved, Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Mike O’Rielly both simply said “Aye.”
Net neutrality wasn’t on the commission’s agenda Tuesday, but Pai was asked numerous questions about the issue in his news conference, and a small group of protesters, numbering perhaps a half dozen, gathered outside the FCC for the meeting, bearing signs calling for an open internet and asking that Pai be fired. Asked several times about the commission’s policy toward the open internet order going forward, Pai said he wouldn’t “make any news today in regard to that topic." He declined to say whether the FCC would enforce open Internet rules, and would say only that he believed in an open internet and opposed Communications Act Title II regulation.
Pai hasn’t had conversations with the White House about changes to FCC processes or shifting commission duties to other agencies, he said. A White House executive order that requires two regulations to be rolled back for every new one implemented is seen as not applying to the FCC or other independent agencies, Pai said. The White House said similar (see 1701310022). The FCC is still studying the executive order, Pai said.
The new chairman said enforcement and rolling back outdated “counterproductive” regulations are priorities for his FCC. He called robocalls as a “scourge” the regulator might tackle through enforcement, but Pai didn’t say how it might pursue process reform. “We obviously want to make sure our regulations match the modern marketplace,” Pai said. In response to questions about set-top box and media ownership rules, Pai said they were among many items FCC staff is reviewing and haven’t made decisions on. Last week, Pai removed the draft set-top order among others from circulation, drawing Wheeler's scorn (see 1701310067).
The item approved Tuesday eliminated public inspection requirements for broadcast correspondence files and cable headend information, as expected. “The elimination of these rules will reduce regulatory burdens on commercial broadcasters and cable operators without adversely affecting the general public," said a Media Bureau release. “There is little, if any, connection between the correspondence file requirement and its purported goal of ensuring that a station serves its local community,” Pai said. The absence of the requirements will allow cable providers and broadcasters to put the entirety of their public files online, the bureau said. For cable operators, headend information will remain available to the FCC and TV stations on request, the bureau said.
“This is not information needed by the general public, but it is important for the FCC staff, who not only use it in planning for a potential natural disaster, but to ensure that cable carriage and signal leakage requirements are appropriately enforced,” Clyburn said. The removal of the requirement removes a needless security risk, said Commissioner Mike O’Rielly. “These were necessary risks to take in an era of paper files, but online public files have the potential to improve the safety of broadcast and cable facilities while enhancing public access to important information,” he said in a written statement.
“We are disappointed that the first FCC vote of 2017 deprives Americans of meaningful information about the scope of their community's feedback,” said the National Hispanic Media Coalition in a statement Tuesday. NHMC lobbied the FCC to continue to require public access to the correspondence file so as not to disadvantage consumers without internet access. "In allowing stations to eliminate the only publicly accessible means to understand how audiences across the country are responding to commercial broadcast coverage, the FCC does a tremendous disservice to all who seek to support journalism that fulfills the public interest obligation it holds,” the group said.
“After this decision, television viewers and listeners will still be able to communicate directly with a station by letter, email, or through social media,” Pai said. “The public will continue to be able to file petitions or objections concerning a television station licensee’s performance at the time the station files its renewal application.” The order “serves as a strong demonstration of Chairman Pai's commitment to curtailing burdensome regulations that hinder broadcasters' ability to operate, create jobs and serve the public interest," an NAB spokesman said.