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from: Ars Technica

Rare, medium, or well-done? FCC to be grilled by Congress

1/14/2007 7:28:42 PM, by Nate Anderson

The five commissioners of the Federal Communications Commission will be facing intense Congressional scrutiny over the next few months as two separate committees plan to hold hearings on the agency's conduct. With the Democrats now in power, the topic of those hearings isn't mysterious: media consolidation, network neutrality, and the AT&T/BellSouth merger.

Presidential contender Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) showed up at the National Conference for Media Reform (meeting this week in Memphis, Tennessee) to announce that his committee would have some tough questions for the FCC. Kucinich holds the chairmanship of the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the House Government Perform Committee, and he figures that he has as much right as anyone to hold hearings on recent FCC actions.

He's not the only one. John Dingell (D-MI) heads the Energy and Commerce Committee in the House, and he is widely feared at federal agencies for his famous "Dingell-grams" announcing investigations or demanding answers. He's already made clear that he intends to get involved with FCC issues; Dingell issued a statement last year urging his fellow Democrats on the Commission not to unnecessarily obstruct the proceedings. Dingell, known as someone who loves to oversee agencies, is likely to look into FCC practices at some point during the next two years.

Ars also spoke with Amina Fazlullah, a staff attorney at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. Fazlullah does extensive work in telecoms law and policy, and she expects to see all five FCC commissioners called to Congress to testify when the Senate Commerce Committee holds its own hearing. That hearing, called "Assessing the Communications Marketplace: A View from the FCC," happens on February 1, 2007, and will largely focus on the FCC's recent video franchising decision that strips power from local authorities.
Media Reform Conference

Most of the major players in the "media reform" movement gather this week for the conference in which Kucinich announced his plans. Ed Markey (D-MA) and John Dingell were there, as was Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and the two Democratic FCC commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps. The conference was no place for Republicans; a Bush impersonator was booed by the crowd and Jesse Jackson, Jane Fonda, and Danny Glover all gave speeches.

Adelstein, though not an elected official, showed himself the master of the stump speech and the sound bite when he addressed the crowd, telling the audience that it was time to "go on the offensive" regarding media ownership and network neutrality. With "no more Tom Delay to delay the vote," Adelstein expressed his hope that the time was right for Congress to pass legislation requiring network neutrality and preventing individual companies from owning too many media outlets.

Journalist Bill Moyers hit the same themes. He called network neutrality be "equal access provision of the Internet" and said that the grassroots campaign in favor of it had "once again reminded the powers that be that people want the media to foster democracy, not to quench it." With media increasingly delivered over a single broadband connection, Moyers said that people—not major media companies—"now have it in our means to tell a different story than Big Media. This is the great gift of the digital revolution, and you must never let them take it away from you."

Despite all the rhetoric, no one is quite sure what will happen in Congress this year. Fazlullah tells Ars that everyone is "still doing the tallies" on network neutrality legislation, for instance, but that Ed Markey at least has plans to introduce a neutrality bill in the House relatively soon. The recent network neutrality commitment from AT&T has created "heightened public interest" in the issue, Fazlullah says, but with a war going on, it might not be high enough on the priority list to get much Congressional attention this year.