Top Republicans on Tuesday called on the Federal Communications Commission to cease implementing controversial regulations during the presidential transition period, telling agency chairman Tom Wheeler to drop issues that next year’s officeholders “will have an interest in reviewing.”
The letter, sent by Oregon Rep. Greg Walden and Michigan Rep. Fred Upton, advised Wheeler to focus on an incentive auction during his remaining days with the agency. “The most important challenge for the commission over the next 10 weeks is to ensure a successful broadcast incentive auction.
“The successful completion of the auction will provide needed spectrum to meet Americans’ wireless broadband needs and ensure that Americans continue to enjoy the local news and national programming broadcasters provide,” the duo wrote.
Lawmakers pointed to a similar letter sent in 2008 by Democrats during the transition period between President Bush and President Obama, and said it would be “counterproductive for the FCC to consider complex and controversial items that the new Congress and new administration will have an interest in reviewing.”
“We strongly urge you to concentrate the commission’s attention and resources only on matters that require action under the law and efforts to foster the success of the broadcast incentive auction,” they wrote.
Republican FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai said in a statement that honoring the request would align with precedent set during the 2008 transition. “I hope Chairman Wheeler follows [the] example and honors the wishes of our congressional leaders,” Pai said.
The agency is set to vote at its November meeting on Thursday on price caps for business data services, a move that is expected to pass on a party line vote. The agency voted in October to regulate the privacy practices of broadband providers, pursuant to “net neutrality” regulations passed in 2015.
It is widely expected that Republicans will repeal or defund the net neutrality rules when they regain the agency’s 3-2 majority. That action would negate many of the regulations the FCC has passed over the last two years by removing broadband providers from its regulatory purview.
Upton and Walden respectively head the Energy and Commerce Committee and the subcommittee on Communications and Technology in their chamber, making them chiefly responsible for congressional oversight of the FCC.
