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The Regulatory Mix, TMI’s daily blog of regulatory activities, is a snapshot of PUC, FCC, legislative, and occasionally court issues that our regulatory monitoring team uncovers each day. Depending on their significance, some items may be the subject of a TMI Briefing.

TELECOM

FCC

         Rural Broadband

The FCC announced it was ready to authorize rural broadband experiment support in the amount of $37,695.60 for New Lisbon Broadband and Communications, LLC (New Lisbon) to bring new broadband to seven census blocks in rural Indiana. To be authorized to receive this support, New Lisbon must submit at least one acceptable irrevocable stand-by letter of credit and Bankruptcy Code opinion letter from its legal counsel by March 7, 2016.

          FCC Censorship

In a Blog posting entitled “Stop Unfairly Censoring Commissioners,” FCC Commissioner Michael O’Reilly urged the FCC’s Chairman to provide blanket written approval to all the FCC Commissioners so they can openly discuss the items before them. O’Reilly claims that the rule prohibiting FCC employees from discussing nonpublic information outside the FCC without written approval of the Chairman is “being applied discriminatorily as Commissioners are silenced while the Chairman, the Commission’s media relations team and select staff are not only allowed to openly discuss items, but also post blogs, tweet, issue fact sheets, brief the press, and inform favored outside parties about their content.” He observed that “It is common sense that, if the Commission wants the strongest and most defensible items, it needs to talk to the outside world, including interested and affected parties.  This simple principle is embodied in the Administrative Procedure Act notice and comment rulemaking process.  Similarly, Commissioners also need the opportunity to discuss ideas, problems, and alternative ways to do things than the prescribed proposal contained in any draft item.  As it stands now, it is immensely frustrating to sit in ex parte meetings and be unable to test out other concepts and options or correct any misunderstandings of those in attendance.  But if we were to have such conversations today, my fellow Commissioners and I would risk potentially violating the Commission’s disclosure rule by revealing nonpublic information about items.  The end result is weaker Commission items.”

O’Reilly also noted that the Chairman or “high-level staff” routinely put out blogs and fact sheets to put their “spin on the substance around the time when items are circulated to Commissioners for consideration.  While some of these documents are nonspecific, others provide details about some of the draft proposals or decisions.  As such, they represent and contain nonpublic information.” He added that “if this behavior is actually authorized by the Chairman, let’s see the official documents permitting it.  Where are the letters from the Chairman that covered each and every release of such information at the time?  While I suspect these letters don’t exist, I am always happy to be proven wrong.”

 

INCOMPAS

INCOMPAS announced that Tom Wheeler, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), will be a keynote speaker at The 2016 INCOMPAS Show on Monday, April 11.

 

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