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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Moderated Thread - please read rules before posting -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnG who wrote (335)	7/6/2000 6:27:07 PM
From: JohnG	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 197452

Congress cuts FCC budget to regain some Control over William Kinnard. We all know that this man has abused his office and involved himself in very suspicious activities involving grabbing spectrum and making private spectrum deals. totaltele.com oday's Top Stories FCC under fire from Congress By Elizabeth Biddlecombe, Total Telecom 06 July 2000 The U.S. Congress is attempting to curb the powers of the FCC by cutting its budget and imposing time limits on deliberation of mergers. On Monday 26 June, the House passed a spending bill that cut US$2 billion from the budget covering financial year October 1999 to October 2000. The bill reduced the funds available for salaries and expenses for the media and legislative affairs office. This was followed by a vote in a House of Congress subcommittee that limited the FCC's authority over mergers by setting a 90-day deadline on the inquiries. Commissioner William Kennard, chairman of the FCC, was reported by the Wall Street Journal Interactive edition (3 July 2000) as saying that the budget cut would be devastating at a time when the agency is busier than ever with the booming telecom industry. This most recent cut means that the FCC will have had nearly US$30 billion less than it asked for the current financial year. In response to this latest blow, the FCC has been forced to cancel foreign trips to make up the shortfall amongst other measures. The largely Republican Congress has been consistently alienated by the FCC. Most recently the agency came under fire for its handling of last week's announcement that it was approving SBC Communications's application to offer long-distance service in Texas. It seems that news of the approval was leaked before the decision had been fully ratified. Congress is also against the launch of 'low-power' community radio stations as spearheaded by Kennard. But there is a history of antagonism between the agency and Congress. "Congress has been really mad at the FCC for the last few years", said Larry Spiwak, president of the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal and Economic Public Policy Studies (Washington D.C.) and a vociferous critic of the FCC. "[The FCC] has turned into a political arm of the Executive branch. Reed Hundt, Kennard's predecessor, nakedly said that his job was to achieve Al Gore's political objectives, and Kennard was hand-picked for the job." However, according to Spiwak, Congress is only exacerbating the situation with these recent moves. "The FCC has come under a lot of fire for reviewing mergers," he said. "Congress wants them to just stamp licenses. This is not fair to the FCC. Congress is not as interested in getting the right answer as getting silence from its constituents and has opted for the easiest way to get what it wants: rather than do anything meaningful it has cut the money. The FCC deserves a lot of criticism and more, but cutting the budget off is not the right thing to do. There are many good people at the FCC trying to do good work in the face of political pressure and they will be even more beleaguered and even more overworked. There is still a tremendous amount of problems in the U.S. telecoms industry", said Spiwak. The FCC has come under fire for failing to enable true competition, but rather working to maintain its own power and that of the RBOCs as well as perpetrating a digital divide within the US itself. Roy Neel, president and chief executive of the U.S. Telephone Association (USTA), which represents US operators, has called for the FCC to be “sunset” by 2004.