Bush Nominees to FCC Tip Balance To GOP
By Stephen Barlas
from the April 16, 2001 issue of Broadband Week
WASHINGTON--Both CLECs and ILECs seem happy--but for different reasons, of course--with President Bush's three nominees to the Federal Communications Commission.
The two Republican nominees, Kevin Martin and Kathleen Abernathy, previously spent time in FCC staff positions before moving on to higher profile jobs. If confirmed as expected by the Senate, Martin and Abernathy will give Chairman Michael Powell a 3-2 GOP voting majority, versus the current 2-2 split.
The president's third nominee, Democrat Michael Copps, is a former protégé of South Carolina's Sen. Fritz Hollings, ranking Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee that oversees the FCC.
Martin served as legal advisor to current Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth, who is leaving the commission. Martin is currently a Bush White House aide, and served as deputy general counsel for the Bush for President campaign.
Abernathy was a top staffer to former Republican FCC commissioner James Quello. From the FCC, Abernathy went on to lobbying job at Baby Bell US West--now owned by Qwest Communications--and from there to a CLEC, Broadband Office Communications.
Jason Oxman, senior counsel to DLEC Covad Communications, Inc., who also worked at the FCC and knows both GOP nominees, says both Martin and Abernathy will be "strict constructionists" when it comes to interpretation and enforcement of the 1996 Telecommunications Act.
Some CLECs have been critical of the Telecom Act enforcement bureau established at the FCC in late 1999. "We have been pleased with some of their actions, but we don't feel they have done enough," Oxman says.
The latest FCC enforcement action was an $88,000 fine of SBC Communications on March 15 for violating terms of its merger with Ameritech. SBC is required to disclose steps it is taking to make its network available to competitors, but the FCC accused the carrier of filing inadequate and evasive reports over a period of 13 months. When Powell appeared before the House telecommunications and Internet subcommittee in March, he said, "We will need Congress's help to put real teeth into our enforcement efforts."
Interestingly, the Bell companies don't think enhanced enforcement is necessarily a bad idea, if it gives them a clearer idea of what they can and cannot do under the 1996 Act. A senior lobbyist at one Bell company, who declines to be identified, agrees with Covad's Oxman that the two new GOP commissioners will interpret the 1996 Act strictly. "But it is not at all clear that that will mean they will side with the data CLECs," she adds. "In fact, they won't react like some of their predecessors who first decided on what outcome they wanted to see and worked backwards from there."
The three new commissioners also will have an impact on important broadband regulatory proceedings already under way. The Bell executive pointed to the commission's colocation docket, especially the issue of whether the Bells have to unbundle their digital loop carrier systems. That decision will turn on whether the equipment the data CLECs want to install in those DLCs--line cards for example--are classified as packet-switching equipment or transmission equipment. If the equipment is classified as "transmission," then the Bells would have to unbundle the fiber service offerings, thereby lowering the costs to the data CLECs.
"The Republican commissioners will not be influenced by whether the data CLEC industry needs to be rescued," says the Bell executive.
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