The House Appropriations Committee has included in its fiscal year 2017 financial services bill a prohibition on FCC implementation of its 2015 open Internet order until resolution of pending legal challenges of the order, as well as prohibitions on FCC regulation of the rates or data caps of broadband services and further activity in pending proceeding on set-top box (STB) rules until 180 days after the agency completes a peer-reviewed cost-benefit study.
The measure would also require the FCC to make proposed regulations publicly available at least 21 days before the Commission votes on them. It would also clarify that the previously enacted “grandfathering” of broadcast stations’ joint sales agreements, which exempts then-existing agreements from the FCC’s decision to treat them as an equity stake under its ownership rules, applies “regardless of any change in the ownership of the stations involved in such agreement.”
Meanwhile, the bill also says that “[n]one of the funds appropriated by this Act may be used by the Federal Communications Commission to modify, amend, or change the rules or regulations of the Commission for universal service high-cost support for competitive eligible telecommunications carriers in a way that is inconsistent with paragraph (e)(5) or (e)(6) of section 54.307 of title 47, Code of Federal Regulations, as in effect on July 15, 2015: Provided, That this section shall not prohibit the Commission from considering, developing, or adopting other support mechanisms as an alternative to Mobility Fund Phase II.”
The financial services bill would set an FCC budget of $315 million for FY 2017—a cut of $69 million from the FY 2016 enacted level and $43 million below the administration’s request—with the funding to be collected in the form of regulatory fees.
The bill says that “proceeds from the use of a competitive bidding system that may be retained and made available for obligation shall not exceed $106,000,000 for fiscal year 2017: Provided further, That, of the amount appropriated under this heading, not less than $11,751,000 shall be for the salaries and expenses of the Office of Inspector General.”
It would require the FCC and the Federal Trade Commission, among other agencies, to submit a report to the House and Senate Appropriations committees on “(1) increasing public participation in the rule-making process and reducing uncertainty; (2) improving coordination with other Federal agencies to eliminate redundant, inconsistent, and overlapping regulations; and (3) identifying existing regulations that have been reviewed and determined to be outmoded, ineffective, or excessively burdensome.”
The bill would set an FTC budget for FY 2017 of $317 million, with up to $140 million to come from offsetting fees for premerger notification filings and do-not-call database fees.
The bill also would bar the use of FY 2017 appropriations “to require the disclosure by a provider of electronic communication service to the public or remote computing service of the contents of a wire or electronic communication that is in electronic storage with the provider (as such terms are defined in sections 2510 and 2711 of title 18, United States Code) in a manner that violates the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.” —Lynn Stanton, lynn.stanton@wolterskluwer.com
Courtesy TRDaily