FCC Seeks Comment on Doubling Time to Make Ex Parte Filings
A rulemaking notice on ex parte rules asks if the amount of time to file them should be doubled in most cases, while giving those lobbying the FCC in the seven days before an item is voted on at a meeting less time to complete the paperwork. Many filings are made late, often by a day or two (CD Feb 18 p4). The notice approved at Thursday’s meeting seeks comment on whether those paying lobbying calls to the regulator outside the Sunshine Period should have two business days to make ex parte filings, said staffer Julie Veach. The meeting continued into the early evening as staffers discussed the National Broadband Plan.
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The current deadline is one business day after an ex parte meeting was held, said Veach. She works for the Office of General Counsel, which also wrote an FCC reform item approved by commissioners. They also approved an E-rate order.
The ex parte notice will seek comment on requiring filings four hours after meetings during the Sunshine Period, Veach said. It will propose that the period during which only commission employees can initiate meetings on pending items begins at midnight after a Sunshine Notice is issued, she said. The rulemaking seeks comment on “sanctions and enforcement regarding ex parte rule violations,” she said. “Enforcement is going to be absolutely key to whatever we do today,” said Commissioner Michael Copps, who circulated the rulemaking this summer, when he was interim chairman. “With no substance, no reasoning, no details, no granularity to it at all -- too often those are the kinds of ex partes that we receive.”
The rulemaking notice on commission procedures would let staffers identify inactive dockets among the several thousand open at the FCC to be closed, said Richard Welch, also of the counsel’s office. The item would give bureaus and offices authority to deny petitions for reconsideration that “do not warrant the attention of the full commission” because they're filed late, “don’t highlight what the error in the previous decision was” or have other structural shortcomings, he said.
“There’s a lot of work to do” in “pursuing an open agency,” though such issues have “a low degree of sexiness,” Chairman Julius Genachowski said. “We're well on the way to relaunching FCC.gov.” It’s “critical we give the public a window into he information we receive” in an “open” and “timely fashion,” Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said. FCC member Robert McDowell isn’t sure new rules are needed, just better enforcement of existing ones, he said.
The FCC also unanimously adopted an order that allows schools using the E-rate benefit to permit public use of their broadband facilities at no increased cost to the E-rate program. The commission also adopted a rulemaking notice that would make the changes permanent. “We believe this will increase community access to services that are underutilized,” said Irene Flannery, acting associate Wireline Bureau chief. Under the order, participating schools would get a limited waiver from the requirement that restricts use of schools’ networks for educational purposes. The waiver is applicable to the 2009-2010 E-rate funding years, and will “provide more opportunities for public access to Internet services,” said Regina Brown, attorney advisor for the Telecommunications access Policy Division. The order would limit community use of school networks to non-operating hours and schools aren’t permitted to sell their network capacities, Brown said. It also stipulates that schools may not request funding for more services as a result of opening their networks to the pubic.
“These connections will be available to adults taking evening digital literacy courses, to unemployed workers looking for jobs posted online,” and to other members of the community, Chairman Julius Genachowski said. It’s a “clear and fast opportunity to expand broadband access.”
The State of Alaska first petitioned the commission in 2001 to relax the requirement that E-rate funded services are to be used for “educational purposes” only. The commission granted Alaska permission to open its doors to the public. “It makes sense to open up this opportunity up to all communities in the country,” said Commissioner Robert McDowell. It’s imperative for educational use to get first priority and that public use is incidental, he said.