Clyburn Says Energy, Broadband Not So Different
FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn believes the development of broadband and energy policies have similarities, since both involve technology and communicating with consumers, she told us. The convergence of different types of technology in the communications sector is similar to what has happened in energy -- an industry she oversaw as a South Carolina regulator for 11 years -- Clyburn said in one of her first interviews since joining the FCC Aug. 3: “The common denominator oftentimes is technology, and in this case broadband technology.”
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Clyburn doesn’t believe government regulation is at odds with industry investment, she said. “This agency is committed to doing what it can to be an encourager of innovation [and] a healthy environment. Where we can and should, we will watch from afar. But doing that does not mean you're absent. … The public is best served if they know that we're watching out for their needs.” She sees no “disconnect” between net neutrality rules and providers’ ability to reasonably manage their networks, Clyburn said. “The chairman has made that clear. … Some of the details, I know we need to have more conversations about,” such as security.
A key priority for the commissioner and her staff will be public outreach, often outside Washington, as the FCC works on its national broadband plan, Clyburn and her aides said. Getting outside Washington is helpful, she said, citing her trip last week to South Carolina for meetings on broadband and telemedicine. Charleston, with “more technical and infrastructure opportunities” than more-rural parts of the state, still has “a series of challenges,” she said. “Those visits were perfect examples of the opportunities and challenges this commission is faced with this plan.”
The first month on the job Clyburn met with no one outside the FCC on commission business and instead huddled extensively with bureau officials and her aides to get “the nuances, the highlights and the lowlights of the agency,” she said. “That helped me foundationally get a better handle for what my next almost three years would look like.” She then began meeting with consumer, civil rights and other groups, “a nice foundation, a nice primer for things going forward.”
Clyburn said she felt “energized” by the FCC broadband team’s four-hour presentation at the commission’s September meeting, because of the staff’s willingness to listen to anybody and everybody, she said. “I saw a process that was fluid and open and, to me, in sync with a lot of the challenges brought forth by a whole host of persons who always see government as this very rigid entity that is unwilling to listen and learn.” Getting that kind of broad input is important, because the government’s broadband effort “is not merely an exercise. This is a mission.”
But the FCC seems much less of a public-facing agency than the South Carolina Public Service Commission, she said. Evidentiary hearings, common there, are a “rarity” at the FCC, she said. “We had face-to-face interaction with the public. … The national broadband plan, because of the hearings, allows for some of that, but this was every day for us at the [state] commission.”
Communication is also the best way to resolve jurisdictional tension between states and the FCC that may arise over some issues, Clyburn said. Utilizing federal- state joint boards is “key to lessening those natural tensions that will occur between state and federal agencies,” she said. “I don’t think power should be wrestled from” states on the things they do on a regular basis and do well, she said. But federal agencies can do better “on some of the broader issues” because “there’s something to be said about a universal standard instead of 50-plus territorial standards.” Clyburn isn’t currently assigned to a joint board, but said she’s “willing to serve if asked.”
With the FCC quadrennial media ownership review set to start next month with workshops (CD Oct 7 p6), Clyburn has been talking to broadcasters, she said. “Communication is key to ensure that we have enough data as it relates to the challenges at hand. I've spoken to some broadcasters and things are not comfortable. There are a whole host of challenges that have gotten our attention” and were a concern to her before she joined the FCC. “The outcome [should be that] this universe is better off.” To get an “optimal” outcome, “the process needs to be open and participatory,” Clyburn said.
Though she hasn’t formed many opinions on competition in the pay-TV industry, Clyburn wants a “healthy market,” she said. “We want an environment where the consumer and the deliverer of that service [are] as content as possible, and whatever we can do from this level to ensure that occurs, we will.” At the state regulator, which didn’t oversee cable, she heard many gripes about pay-TV pricing and availability of options, she said. “That was a tense subject.”
Clyburn joked that sorting out all the “crazy” telecom acronyms was “in the top five” toughest things to learn upon arriving at the FCC. “To be honest, I spent a lot of time on the energy side, and there’s some acronyms that mean one thing in one discipline” and something else in the other, she said.
Clyburn plans to move to the Washington area but still lives in Columbia, S.C., part of the district she represented as a utility regulator, she said. Clyburn commutes home most weekends, doing her “homework on the plane,” she said. That should change soon, Clyburn said. “I don’t make a secret about not being independently wealthy, so my going back and forth will cease pretty soon.”