House Subcommittee To Investigate FCC

WASHINGTON -- December 4, 2007: House Commerce Committee Chairman John
Dingell (D-MI) told FCC Chairman Kevin Martin in a letter Monday that
he's concerned about "procedural breakdowns" at the FCC and that the
Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation will
be conducting a probe into the agency.

"Given several events and proceedings over the past year, I am rapidly
losing confidence that the commission has been conducting its affairs
in an appropriate manner," Dingell wrote to Martin. Though he said
it's not true in the case of every proceeding, Dingell said that "a
trend appears to be emerging of short-circuiting procedural norms,
suggesting a larger breakdown at the agency."

He continued, "For instance, the commission does not put the text of
proposed rules out for notice and comment; there is little public
notice of certain proposed commission actions; and commissioners are
often not informed of the details of draft items until it is too late
to provide the necessary scrutiny and analysis that is so important to
reasoned decisionmaking."

Martin and the four other FCC commissioners are all on the witness
list for a hearing on media ownership by Commerce's Subcommittee on
Telecommunications and the Internet, set for 9:30 a.m. tomorrow.

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A bunch of comments are being emailed to the Chairman, as I type.