FCC commissioner wants fewer rules, more enforcement

PHOENIX--FCC Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy said yesterday she believes the commission should “regulate with enforcement in mind” and reduce the number of rules that carriers must heed, but enforce those rules “vigorously.”

The commissioner outlined her agenda to attendees of the United States Telecom Association’s annual convention. She also said Congress determines the commission’s responsibilities and the FCC should concentrate on implementing the statutes, rather than pursuing its own policy objectives.

“It’s very tempting for commissioners to push their own policy preferences over those established by Congress in the [1996 Telecom] Act. But we must not do this,” she said. “While we do have the discretion to prioritize among the Congressional mandates, we must not turn that discretion into a license to define those mandates.”

Abernathy also said the FCC should rely more on market forces, rather than restrictive regulations, to meet the industry’s competition challenges. She said her experience in the private sector and working for the FCC have taught her that competitive forces are more effective than regulation.

“Despite our best intentions, regulators cannot duplicate the ability of markets to allocate resources, to spur innovation and encourage companies to improve services and lower their prices,” she said. “Beyond a shadow of a doubt, a competitive market works to provide value to consumers.”

In addition, the commissioner said the FCC needs to be more humble, improve its communication with the industry, and concentrate on becoming a services-based organization.

“The FCC should strive to provide you, our customers, with the same degree of responsiveness that for-profit companies strive to provide,” she said.

Abernathy said there regulators tend to expand and defend their turf even when the justification for regulatory intervention in a marketplace had “long since disappeared. She added that Congress anticipated this and included Sections 10 and 11 in the Act “as an antidote to this bureaucratic inertia.” Abernathy said these provisions require the FCC to eliminate outmoded regulations.

Those that remain should be enforced strictly, she said, because to do otherwise encourages non-competition. Abernathy added that new rules should be crafted with enforcement in mind.

“We need to be sure that we’re willing to devote substantial resources that would be required to enforce a rule before we move to adopt that particular rule,” she said.