Church group asks FCC to block WorldCom license tranfers

The United Church of Christ (UCC) today called for the FCC to block the debtor-in-possession transfer of licenses and other authorizations that would be required by WorldCom to provide long-distance and Internet-related services should the carrier emerge intact from its bankruptcy proceeding.

“The so-called new WorldCom is almost entirely the same cast of characters who created the original crisis at WorldCom,” said the Rev. Robert Chase, the executive director of the United Church of Christ, which claims 1.4 million members in more than 6000 churches. “This is simply not an acceptable situation.”

Chase added that companies that operate the nation’s telecommunications and Internet facilities must operate in the public interest and maintain good character. “Only the FCC can send a clear signal to the rest of the telecommunications world that WorldCom was and is grossly unfit to serve as the Information Age steward,” Chase said.

The UCC also called on the commission to launch a broad investigation under Section 403 of the Communications Act of 1934 to determine the root causes of “the climate of opportunism” under which WorldCom and other telecom companies operated.

“We need this investigation to illuminate how we might halt the slide of some in the telecommunications industry into this corporate [malfeasance] at the expense of the American people.”

Chase said the UCC would file a petition calling for an FCC rulemaking that would strengthen the enforcement of current “character provisions” – so that “bad actors” could be caught early enough to protect the public – and determine what steps are needed to ensure that such “misbehavior” does not reoccur.

“The FCC should retake the moral authority that has been ceded to, and abandoned by, the leaders of WorldCom, and restore confidence in the telecommunications industry,” Chase said.

According to Chase, the UCC has had some success with this sort of activity in the past. In 1968, the UCC initiated proceedings before the FCC to establish equal opportunity employment guidelines and recruitment standards that “held the broadcasting industry, and later the cable industry, to higher standards than other sectors of society,” he said.

“Under these guidelines, the industry made great strides towards opening the halls of power to women and people of color,” Chase said.