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TechnoratiFCC Chairman Target of House Panel's Investigation
Chairman Kevin J. Martin is accused of 'possible abuse of power.' A hearing is set for Wednesday.
WASHINGTON -- Two key House lawmakers announced Monday that they were investigating the Federal Communications Commission, accusing its chairman of "possible abuse of power" and a failure to operate fairly and openly in handling proposed cable TV and media ownership regulations.
"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," Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, wrote to FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin.
Dingell said he was concerned that the FCC had not made the full text of proposed rules available to the public before it voted on them, and that Martin often had not given other commissioners details of proposals until it was too late for them to fully analyze them.
Martin, a Republican, has faced criticism from lawmakers and fellow commissioners recently for how he has approached the contentious issues of re-regulating the cable TV industry and easing rules on the ownership of newspaper and TV stations in the same city.
Dingell has summoned Martin and the four other FCC commissioners to an oversight hearing Wednesday, and a Senate committee will hear testimony from them next week.
"I have received several complaints from the public and professionals within the communications industry about how Chairman Martin is conducting business at the FCC," said Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), who heads the Energy and Commerce subcommittee that will conduct the investigation. "It is one thing to be an aggressive leader, but many of the allegations indicate possible abuse of power and an attempt to intentionally keep fellow commissioners in the dark."
An FCC spokesman declined to comment Monday.
At a contentious FCC meeting last week, which was delayed nearly 12 hours by internal wrangling, Republican Commissioners Robert M. McDowell and Deborah Taylor Tate, along with Democratic Commissioner Jonathan S. Adelstein, criticized Martin for his handling of a report on cable competition.
Martin had circulated a report that concluded cable TV had passed a key statistical threshold that would allow the FCC to impose new regulations on the industry. But Martin had relied on data from an outside firm that were contradicted by other independent analyses and the agency's own statistics.
McDowell and Adelstein complained that they did not receive the FCC's own data from Martin until the night before the meeting. Adelstein accused Martin of suppressing the information in an attempt "to cook the books."
Adelstein and the FCC's other Democrat, Michael J. Copps, have also accused Martin of trying to rush through a proposal to ease the so-called newspaper and TV cross-ownership rule. The lengthy media ownership review process seemed headed into 2008 when Martin announced in October that he wanted to propose new rules and vote on them by Dec. 18. The move upset some Democrats and Republicans in Congress, and the Senate Commerce Committee will vote on a bill today to force the FCC to wait at least 90 days before such a vote.
Ben Scott, policy director of Free Press, a media reform group opposed to loosening the rules, welcomed the probe, accusing the FCC of "a rigged process" designed to produce a "predetermined outcome."
"The lack of transparency in FCC matters has left the public with little faith that the agency is acting in their best interest," Scott said.
jim.puzzanghera@latimes.com
© 2007 The Los Angeles Times
16 Comments so far
Show Allspacecase44:
I write my senators, congressfolk, editors and columnists so often we're practically on a first name basis. I also attend political meetings. Don't discourage people from doing whatever it is we do best. This is going to take all of us.
RE: spacecase44 December 5th, 2007 2:36 pm
Your criticism of us is unfounded, spacey. Of course I don't know all of the people at the sites I regularly blog on, but I do know quite a number who are activists. We have ceaselessly written letters to congress/press, phoned, and signed petitions until pens ran out of ink. Some of us have even hit the streets in demonstrations & protests. All congress & this administration has done is flip us the bird. You seem to forget we now have the best government that can be bought, and our 'representatives' LOL (most anyway) are there to get their share of the pIe, AND COULD CARE LESS IF WE DON'T EVEN GET THE SCRAPS. Look at the links I just posted to see what is going on and while you are at it take time to study this one:
http://www.justiceplus.org/bankers.htm
Keep your shirt on, blogger neophyte, there will be plenty of time to hit the streets later. The first duty of patriots now is disemination of truthful information, and since this is almost impossible through the current MSM the blog-o-sphere is our best tool to build an organization in opposition to the status quo. Speak out, but remember this, "Rome wasn't built in a day, BUT IT GOT BUILT".
Stick around, but do your homework & cross-reference any facts you use in your arguements. Misinformation & lies are their tools, NOT ours.
Ever heard of AIPAC or the neo-CON/Zionist agenda? Take the time to study these FACTS:
http://www.natvan.com/who-rules-america/wra.pdf
Then pay close attention to point #6 here:
http://www.oldamericancentury.org/14pts.htm
Are you starting to see a picture forming? If you can't put 1+1 together then you are a dunce.
Yes, the computer jockeys are really going to save the world! I'm so excited!! All we have to do is stop preaching to the choir and actually do something. Write letters to your senators and representatives, stir your friends or acquaintences up, attend meetings, start a town hall action meeting.
Or just sit at your computer and complain about everything . Forward endless really stupid emails and as soon as the election is over and our rights have eroded, complain again.
When I was a kid, we used to enjoy going on drives in the country. Then, it got to the point where you couldn't see the country for the endless billboards that lined both sides of the roads.
Finally, most states passed anti-billboard legislation and we could once more see the countryside. Big business hated it. I see that they are beginning to appear again. This is just one more move by the Corporatocracy to put their messages of greed before us everywhere.
If you really want to get an idea of what is going on, watch the old movie Network "There are no nations, Mr. Beale, there are no borders, no governments, no laws. There is only business. There are only dollars, rubles, yuan, yen, francs and pounds. These move around the world, unhindered, for our benefit. You, Mr. Beale, are f%#king with business!"
Later, he becomes the only person to be killed on the air for poor ratings, but the above quote (paraphrased from memory) startled me when it came out as I didn't think a statement that honest would ever appear on the silver screen.
Now, of course, it is blatant. The governments do the bidding of the corporatocracy, using their power to tax, their power to spy, their power to harass and destroy, to augment the power and wealth of business. Toadys like Powell and Martin are just lick spittles, doing the bidding of their masters. If they make a mistake, they get slapped down like errant puppies.
When you look at the scum and lackeys that are regularly nominated by the executive and rubber stamped by the Senate in the face of millions of protests, you can get the idea as to which part of the dog is doing the wagging.
Are you aware that in the midst of our attempts to power down our use of energy, Clear Channel is trying to get rights to put digital signage on the sides of our roadways.
Do many of you, while driving along our roads and highways, case the verges for ideas of things to buy? Not I. I'm speed reading trying to find out which lane I need to be in to get off this stretch of road, or looking for the sign that tells me which road is coming up, or for warning signs.
I can't imagine of what possible use to the citizen a digital sign would be and why we'd want to clutter our roadsides with something else to read.
I think some of this discussion is in another world. To say that this corporate tool is "doing the right thing," (as the first comment did), and using that as another reason to bash the Democrats shows me, at least, that you have 'closed the cicle.' You have moved so far out in one direction, pretending to be "left," that you come out on the other side, to the right of the Dems.
What we should be doing is moblizing to oppose any movement to 'liberalize' ownership rules, allowing massive media coporations to own even more. This is a fight for democracy, and, at this point Dingall is certainly on the right (correct) side. This is a fight that is certainly worth taking on, and we can win it. The vast majority of the American public are with us, as well as organized labor and most social justice organizations. Turning the corporations back on something as important as media ownership rules would send a real signal to all that progressives can and will fight, and the bilding of wide coalitions will show that we know how to win!
We cannot afford to set on the sidelines, critisizing those conducting the important struggles for democracy in our nation for "not going far enough." Only by fighting on all of these battles do we put ourselves in position to even be able to win the bigger fights.
B-payne 'At the same time, he was doing the wrong thing with the media ownership rules, allowing more concentration. Congress had no problem with this part, at least certainly not enough to call a hearing like this one.'
Congress did have a problem with it and that's where you got the lott-dorgon proposal.(not a hearing, but definitely action)
Congress has plenty of beef with more media consolidation.
The LA Times and the Media has this backwards. They're assuming actions coming from the White House aren't abuses of power. They have to approach it from the other side, and begin the analysis there; You're much more accurate and safe to assume what they're doing is an abuse of power.
I don't get it…he seems like a patsy.
The FCC chairman having to answer for abuse of power?!?!
They received several complaints? Must have been someone important complaining for them to hurry up and make this happen.
Seems like everyone I know is complaining, sending letters and signing petitions etc.
How does this trump all of that.
Not that this isn't important, but what about the rest of'em… why stop there, ring 'em all.
The people spoke in 2003 when Powell (Colin's son) tried to ramrod through similar media consolidation. MoveOn.org spearheaded the effort to express Americans' disapproval of the FCC effort. This is very likely part of the reason the MSM came down so hard on MoveOn about the Petraeus=Betray-us episode. Wake up all you neo-CONS!!! The American public has seen the results of past media consolidation AND WE DON'T LIKE IT ONE BIT!!! What we need in this country now is to break up some of these monopolies---NOT CREATE MORE.
Good to see there is another investigation.
Wow, this should open some eyes alright.
A Congress any can be proud of.
Cook the books? How dare they accuse a Republican of such a thing.
It's a good thing that our executives don't have to obey laws like us citizen's. If spying needs to be done anywhere it is on this pack of criminals running this place.
The reason they spy on us doesn't have anything to do with terror. It has to do with finding out how well there propaganda machine is working on us.
Is there no one in D.C. to enforce the laws on these people? It seems not.
YOU CAN CROSS THE MEDIA OWNERSHIP LINE BUT NOT THE CABLE MARKET POWER LINE
The only reason Martin is getting called on the carpet is because he intended to do the right thing with cable, imposing regulatory restrictions on its market power designed to reduce market power concentration.
At the same time, he was doing the wrong thing with the media ownership rules, allowing more concentration. Congress had no problem with this part, at least certainly not enough to call a hearing like this one.
In both cases, Martin was manipulating the process - too much for some - to achieve each objective. The cable industry pounced on him hard for the last move - it's just too much monopoly money to give up.
It's no coincidence that one rarely sees serious consumer advocates on the supposedly objective C-SPAN channels criticizing cable.
C-SPAN is a creature of cable and brags repeatedly that it has no government funding.
Well no, C-SPAN doesn't need government when it's backed by some of the most powerful monopolies in the country - powerful enough to whisk the FCC Chair into the hot seat on a moments notice.
Yes, Martin may have violated some process rules, but when the opposition goes into the gutter, sometimes the only way to take them on is to follow close behind.
If anyone thinks there's much difference between the Dims and the Rubs, watch this hearing - it's not about the process violations they will use as a pretense for the hearing - it's about the money and contributions from this powerful lobby.
Here's an idea... why not stop watching TV until it gets better? I think it's time for a boycott. Oh, wait, I forgot, this is Amerika, and the masses couldn't survive without their MTV... They might have to pay attention to what's going on in the real real world.
Wake me up when its time to vote, will ya?