Walden Amendment to Continuing Resolution Would Kill FCC Net Neutrality Rules
House Republicans will try to use the Continuing Resolution to stop the FCC from acting on its net neutrality order. In a speech Tuesday, House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., said he filed an amendment prohibiting the FCC from spending any money to implement the rule. Also at the NARUC meeting, Walden said he’s considering legislation to overhaul FCC process. He questioned the White House’s FY 2012 budget estimate for money that could be raised by voluntary incentive spectrum auctions.
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Walden isn’t the only House Republican to file a net neutrality amendment to stop FCC action. Another was filed by Commerce Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Cliff Stearns, R-Fla. “There are multiple amendments on net neutrality and I am moving forward with my net neutrality amendment to the Continuing Resolution,” he told us in an e-mail.
The Walden CR amendment “will be debated … by the end of this week and hopefully be passed by the House and the Senate,” Walden said. The amendment is written as a funding limitation, so it wouldn’t specify any specific dollar amount, he told reporters later. The defunding process is one of several tools the GOP will use to challenge the commission on net neutrality, he said. Nullifying the order under the Congressional Review Act is “the cleaner way to go” because it’s a “straight up-or-down vote, not encumbered on the funding side,” Walden said.
The net neutrality rulemaking was plagued by poor process, Walden said in his speech. The order was “symptomatic of a broken process,” he said. “The efforts to deal with controversial issues quickly become a due process embarrassment created by an overreliance and abuse of the ex parte process, insufficient vetting of evidence and last-minute data dumps. This results in a process where in many instances the other commissioners do not see the final order until 24 hours before the vote.” Bad process leads to decisions regularly overturned in court, he said. “This destroys the public confidence in the agency and threatens the agency mission as an independent expert agency."
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has done some work revamping agency processes, but more is needed, Walden told reporters. “Commissions have done this for a long time. I'm not picking on Genachowski, I'm not picking on [Commissioner Michael] Copps. The process needs to change.” Legislation is possible, but there may be things the commission can change itself, he said. Walden said he had a “very productive conversation” with Genachowski on the subject. Walden’s subcommittee will meet all five FCC members at a hearing Wednesday morning on net neutrality.
Walden said he’s concerned how voluntary incentive auction can raise $27.8 billion and still be voluntary, as projected in President Barack Obama’s FY 2012 budget (CD Feb 15 p1). Walden said the House Commerce Committee might take up legislation to authorize voluntary incentive auctions, and may explore a commercial auction of the 700 MHz D-block. Obama’s budget seeks to reallocate the spectrum -- estimated to be worth $3.2 billion -- to public safety. A large amount of auction proceeds should go toward reducing the deficit, he said. Walden said afterward that he hasn’t talked to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, about the D-block.
Walden wants to see an overhaul of the Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation, he said. Parts of his Oregon district are not served, he said: “It’s our job as policymakers to sort that out.” Walden plans to be “directly involved in the discussions at the FCC through our oversight hearings and through legislation possibly.” Copps voiced hope Tuesday that USF and intercarrier comp can be fixed. (See separate report in this issue.)
Walden said he'd be “stunned” to find no waste, fraud and abuse in the broadband stimulus program under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. He has draft legislation to ensure unused or misused funds go back to the U.S. Treasury (CD Feb 11 p5). A quarter of grant recipients never received a federal grant before, and a lot of money went to nonprofits that lack experience building networks, he said.
Free Press thinks Walden’s amendment “is a dangerous overreach that tries to hijack the budget process to punish independent regulators for making rules that big telecoms like Verizon and Comcast don’t like,” said Joel Kelsey, the group’s political adviser. “If Congress wants to make policy, it has the authority to pass new laws. Resorting to maneuvers like trying to hide its actions in a giant budget bill is gamesmanship, not statesmanship.”