O'Rielly Wants More Certainty on When Items Can Be Decided on Delegated Authority
The FCC has an outstanding staff, but some issues are too big to be handled on "delegated authority" and the should be decided by a vote of the members, Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said Monday in a blog post. O’Rielly proposed…
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new guidelines for the use of delegated authority. “Over the past few years, it seems more and more work has been delegated and it now appears that there is a renewed effort to push even more of the Commission’s work to its staff,” he wrote. This may be, in part, to speed things along, he said: “While that’s a worthy goal, I stand ready to act quickly on any matters presented to the full Commission.” Among his proposed guidelines is that any commissioner can request that an item be “bumped up” to the full commission for a vote. “In fact, some people already thought this was in the Commission’s rules or customary FCC practice but recent items have proven otherwise,” he said. The FCC should also require that all bureaus notify commissioners 48-hours ahead of taking action on delegated authority, O’Rielly said. Some parts of the FCC follow that, but others provide only 24-hours notice or none at all, he said. “The 48-hour time frame should become standardized across the Commission to allow Commissioners time to decide whether they would like to request an item be decided by the full Commission,” he said. The FCC should also have rules for what can be decided by staff without a vote, he said. “In the past, some controversial issues that were decided on the quick consisted of rough frameworks or outlines (e.g., term sheets),” O’Rielly said. “It cannot be acceptable to punt an item’s entire fate to a bureau. That is no way to operate an agency that has so much impact on the American economy.”