Martin Aims to Schedule More FCC Meetings Well in Advance
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is trying to schedule meetings further out, after facing congressional criticism for giving the public too little notice of events (CD Dec 6 p1), two agency officials said. His office recently asked aides to the other commissioners to help him set dates for monthly meetings for the next six months, they said. Martin set Jan. 17 and Feb. 26 as the next ones. That’s a departure from the recent practice of scheduling each month’s meeting one at a time and a few weeks in advance. As in previous years, January’s meeting will be light on rulemakings and instead focus on annual bureau reviews, three FCC sources said.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
The chairman is reaching out to his colleagues to try to return to the FCC’s usual practice of setting meeting dates well in advance. The commission used to release all meeting dates for the entire year. Martin’s effort appears to result from the Capitol Hill pressure, an agency source said. He has been slammed in recent months by legislators for not scheduling all of the FCC’s meetings at the start of the year and as giving the public too little notice about media ownership and localism hearings. House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., asked Martin last month whether he would announce all FCC meeting dates for 2008 at the start of the year (CD Nov 28 p9).
Commissioners may soon give Martin the information he needs to set the March, April, May and June meetings, an agency official said. Because of the holidays, other offices haven’t had time to send the chairman a list of dates when they'll be available to meet each month, the source said. An FCC spokesman declined to comment.
Martin’s office didn’t “white copy” any orders for a Jan. 17 vote, an agency source said, further indicating that the meeting will be dedicated to annual reports. At the past two January meetings, front-office officials from all the bureaus reviewed the previous year’s work and highlighted priorities for the next 12 months. A wireless competition report pulled from the Dec. 18 agenda could be voted on at the next meeting, but there’s a good chance it will be adopted on circulation instead, an agency official said.
Unlikely to be voted on at the next meeting are two DTV orders, FCC and industry officials said. That’s because rules on consumer education and technical standards for the transition probably will be approved on circulation before the gathering, said two agency sources. Several commissioners have voted for both items, and the rest are likely to do so soon, they said. Broadcasters are eager for approval of the third periodic DTV review because it will set standards for switching over antennas and other gear to digital (CD Dec 28 p7). Industry has lobbied against requirements in the consumer education order that pay-TV companies insert pamphlets on the transition in customer bills and that broadcasters run public service ads. They contend that voluntary efforts will be more than ample. Debate on the FCC’s top floor about whether such mandates are necessary or even constitutional slowed approval of the order, agency sources said.
The DTV review probably will be the first of the digital rulemakings to be approved and released, perhaps as soon as next week, said agency and industry sources. Commissioners want to finish editing the third periodic review draft order by year-end, an industry attorney said. Association for Maximum Service Television President David Donovan is hopeful for quick action, he said. “The staff and the commissioners understand these issues and they're working very hard to try to resolve them and we anticipate a decision in short order,” he said. “They understand the importance of getting this out early.”
Broadcasters want the FCC to let them use older antennas for digital broadcasts in cases when stations will return to their analog channel slot after Feb. 17, 2009, Donovan said. Without rule changes, some of those stations might have to reduce their power to conform with the DTV table of allotments, cutting off signals to some viewers, he said. “We need the flexibility to use the same pattern for our digital transmission,” Donovan said. Industry also wants leeway to move digital antennas mounted on the side of broadcast towers to the top after the transition, when analog transmitters will be removed, he added. That change is dangerous during the winter, Donovan said.