Greg Walden heats up the griddle for more FCC action

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There are two bills pending in the House Energy and Commerce Committee that have been forwarded by the Communications Subcommittee for full committee markup – an act that seems imminent. Now Communications Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR) is putting the FCC right back on the stove on 2/16/12. The topic: The FCC budget and how it is used.


The hearing is entitled The Budget and Spending of the Federal Communications Commission.” At this point, details are sparse – no announced witnesses, for instance. However we do know that it will be kick off at 9AM eastern.

Committee member staffers will assemble the preceding afternoon for a bipartisan briefing and will then immediately split up for party-member only briefings.

Here’s one of the advantages of being the majority party – Republican staffers will be able to stay put in the room where the bipartisan briefing is being held. The Democrats will have to move to a different space.

RBR-TVBR observation: OK, everybody out there who believes that the FCC is a rogue agency, raise your hands. Our opinion: It’s an agency that invariably gets caught in politically-controversial policy issues, so it always is and always is not a rogue agency.

When George W. Bush was in the White House, a lot of Democrats thought it was a rogue agency and fell in love with then-minority Commissioner Michael Copps. Now that Barack Obama is in the White House a lot of Republicans think it is a rogue agency and are in love with minority Commissioner Robert McDowell.

Thus it always has been, thus it is now, and thus it shall always be – only the names will change.