The FCC is planning to address many issues concerning the incentive auction at the Thursday 7/16/15 Open Meeting. We were wondering about the highly unusual decision to waive the quiet period up until Wednesday meeting.
So we asked around about it.
According to Frank Montero of Fletcher Heald Hildreth, it happens, just not very often.
“In the last five years it appears to have been waived only three other times, in: January, 2015 (relative to the 911 accuracy item); May, 2014 (Open Internet); October, 2013 (several items). Before then, it was waived a small handful of times (e.g., April, 2009 (National Broadband Plan); January, 2009 (Analog Nightlight for DTV); 11/08 (unlicensed operation in TV band)). The high-water mark appears to have been in 2007, when it was waived at least four times, three (12/07, 11/07, 9/07) for the entire agenda, and once (4/07) for an E911 item.”
According to Montero, they couldn’t quickly come up with a similar incident prior to 2007, which is not to say it never happened.
Montero said the issue isn’t specifically addressed in the rules and stated his firm’s belief that the Commission has discretion in the matter.
He does think the waiver may be a matter that LPTV interest could seize on, perhaps in the form of filing FOIA requests to learn who was meeting with whom during the extension.
Gregg Skall of Womble Carlyle Sandridge Rice noted that the basic reason there is a Sunshine rule is to provide the commissioners with quiet time to review the record prior to a meeting. Since it is there for their benefit, he suggested, they should be able to waive it.
He noted that the parties likely to suffer the most would be FCC staffers who would have almost no time to deal with any repercussions of the meetings.
The usefulness of the extra time for stakeholders seeking to influence the process and dissidents seeking to challenge it is uncertain.
