The House Commerce Committee Ranking Member recently circulated a discussion draft meant to address perceived procedural failures at the FCC. In a short paper released this week by PFF, Barbara Esbin voices support for the modest reforms outlined in the draft but suggests more fundamental changes may be needed:
Her conclusion:
Our domestic regulatory policy debate is continually hobbled by the need to conduct it in the "terms of the past" rather than in accordance with the reality of the networks and services of today, let alone the needs of tomorrow's network, service and applications developers and providers. At the very least, the process of debating thorough-going reform of the Act and the agency would have the benefit of focusing attention on the functions the agency performs well, that should be left alone, and those is performs poorly, that should either be reformed or given to another agency or department of government better suited to the particular function.
The whole paper is posted
here.