Like several FCC chairmen before him, Ajit Pai has pledged to get rid of unneeded rules and regulations and slim down the agency’s size (see earlier story). Fellow Republican Commissioner Michael O’Rielly agrees.
Speaking to attendees at NAB 2017 on Monday, O’Rielly said “the Commission needs to place the entire regulatory regime imposed on the broadcasting industry under the microscope. Those rules that don’t survive scrutiny should be junked.”
The FCC is poised to do this, he said. The result would be “a leaner structure that will reduce costs, providing savings to be reinvested elsewhere.”
To accomplish its plans to get more mean and lean, the agency needs more tools, and that’s why O’Rielly has testified before Congress asking for targeted statutory changes to the FCC’s overall authority. He cited the morale of the Enforcement Bureau as a core priority, noting that the previous Administration cut the field staff while adding attorneys to the bureau’s D.C. office. The result is the “demoralized field office staff is expected to do more with less.” O’Rielly said the problem needs attention, instead of staff pursuing “the past Administration’s projects.”
He also hammered at one of his pet topics, the proliferation of pirate radio operators. For several reasons, the Commission “is not sufficiently able or willing to properly police radio spectrum to ensure licenses are protected.” This has resulted in “illegal squatters sitting in the radio band. Pirate radio stations harm public safety, the livelihood of legitimate radio broadcasters, and the FCC’s spectrum enforcement credibility.” If not checked, the pirate problem will get worse, he warned.
April 26, 2017
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