Paperwork reduction act

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At its meeting today, the FCC voted to require that television stations maintain most of their public inspection files online, in a database to be created by the FCC (see the FCC’s Public Notice here).  While the details about this obligation have not yet been released, from the comments at the FCC meeting, much is already evident.   All TV stations will have to post their files to an online server to be maintained by the FCC.  Proposals for new obligations to post information about sponsorship identification and shared services agreements have been dropped, at least for now.  Most documents not already online at the FCC will need to be uploaded within 6 months of the rule becoming effective.  And, in the most controversial action, broadcaster’s political files will need to be posted to the new online database, though in a process that is to be phased in over time.

The political file obligation will apply at first only to affiliates of the Top 4 TV networks in the Top 50 markets.  And only new information for the political file will need to be posted.  Information in the file before the effective date of the order apparently will not need to be posted online, at least not initially.  The requirement for posting the political file online will be reviewed in a proceeding to begin one year after the effective date of the new rules.  As stations outside the Top 50 markets, and other stations in those large markets, will not need to comply with the political file obligations until July 2014, the FCC will be able to reexamine the impact of the disclosure obligations before the compliance obligation for the political file expands to all stations. Continue Reading FCC Votes to Require Online Public File for TV Stations – Rejects Compromise for Political File

In recent weeks, there seems to be a competition to make the FCC more responsive, and to mandate that, before it adopts any new regulations, it take into account the costs of the proposed regulations and the burden that they place on those being regulated.  The Communications and Technology Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee adopted a bill (The FCC Process Reform Act of 2011) that would, if adopted by the full House and the Senate, require that the FCC, before adopting any new regulations, take several steps to make sure that regulations were really necessary (see a summary of House bill here).  Before adopting any rule, the Commission would have to survey the marketplace, determine that there was a market failure or specific consumer harm, then take into account the cost of complying with regulations before the new regulations are adopted.  The proposed legislation would also require that the FCC adopt deadlines on many FCC actions ("shot clocks"), perhaps in response to a Study commissioned by the House Committee looking at the length of time that many FCC proceedings take.  The FCC adopted its own proposals for making its regulations less burdensome by reviewing the continuing need for existing rules, following the President’s call for all agencies to take such action.  The FCC report, after making the seemingly obligatory bows to broadband adoption that the Commission seeks to foster, talked about many of the same issues that the Congressional committee seemed to be addressing – deleting unnecessary regulation wherever possible.  What changes will these efforts bring to the FCC?

Call me cynical, but I doubt that the proposed changes will really lead to any significant differences in the way that the FCC does business.  The FCC is already bound by all sorts of laws that demand that it take into account many of the same considerations that are included in the plans of Congress and the FCC.  The Paperwork Reduction Act has already stopped certain regulations from going into effect, including the Form 355 (which sat in limbo for 4 years and the FCC is only now considering reviving in a somewhat more abbreviated form).  The FCC also must take into account the Regulatory Flexibility Act, looking at the impact of any regulation on small entities who would be subject to any new rule.  Congress itself has already enacted other requirements that the FCC review regulations on a periodic basis – for instance the required Quadrennial Review of the FCC’s multiple ownership rules.  And what do these accomplish?Continue Reading Congress and the Commission Look to Make FCC More Responsive and to Take Costs Into Account in Making New Rules – Will It Work?

Last week, in a frenzy of cleaning up issues left from old license renewal applications, the FCC upheld several $9000 fines for public file violations – most in connection with the failure of licensees to have a complete set of Quarterly Programs Issues lists ("QPIs") in those files.  The broadcasters who were fined came up with a variety of arguments as to why those fines should be reduced or eliminated – which were uniformly rejected by the Commission.  What we find interesting is that, while these large fines were levied against a number of broadcasters, the FCC is at the same time asking whether retention of the public file can be justified under the provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act.  So which is it – an important tool to keep the public informed about the ways that stations serve their public, or an unreasonable burden on those who are regulated by the FCC?

While this request for comments on the paperwork burden imposed by the public file may be nothing more than a routine review of Commission rules to justify their continuing existence under the provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act, it is interesting that this rule – long the source of wrath from broadcasters who complain that the file is never visited except by the occasional college broadcasting student who has to do so as a class project, or by the competitor in the market looking for something to complain about (and even those visits are extremely rare for most stations) – is now up for review and comment.  Why was this rule selected for review?  Will there be other rules about which the FCC asks for comment?  Is there any justification for the burden imposed on broadcasters (which the FCC estimates at a cumulative 1,831,706 hours of work annually, but to which it curiously assigns no associated cost burden with the required tasks) when it is routine for the file to be never visited?  You have your chance to voice your comments – with the filing deadline for such comments being June 17, 2011.Continue Reading Fines of $9000 for Public File Violations Upheld, But FCC Asks if the Paperwork Burden of the Public File is Justified

Several months ago, we wrote of the FCC’s requirements for a new biennial Ownership Report for all commercial broadcast stations – to be filed by all stations in every state on November 1 of every other year – beginning with November 1 of this year.  The FCC has even suspended the requirements for commercial stations to file reports that were due between the date that the rule was adopted and November 1 (reports being due on the even anniversaries of the filing of license renewal applications for stations in the state to which the station is licensed). Yet, here we are, less than a month from the supposed filing deadline for the new forms, and we’ve not seen any notice from the FCC that the new forms are ready to be used or any reminder for broadcasters to prepare and file those reports.  What gives?  Well, the Paperwork Reduction Act has struck again.

We’ve written about the Paperwork Reduction Act before, and its obligation that the FCC (or almost any other government agency) has to justify any new paperwork obligation that it is imposing on companies that it regulates – showing that the burden is as minimal as possible and serves a necessary regulatory process.  Here, when the new ownership reports on FCC Form 323 were submitted to the Office of Management and Budget for approval under the Paperwork Reduction Act, several parties, including the NAB, objected that information requested by the new form was unnecessarily complex, and in fact might violate other Federal laws (in particular Federal Privacy laws) as they required not only the filing of information about the companies who own radio stations with identification of their owners, but required that each and every attributable owner of a station (and actually including a few nonattributable owners who must be reported under the new reporting scheme), obtain an FCC "FRN" identification number that would be attached to that person and uniquely identify them in connection with each and every broadcast interest that they have.  In most cases, that would require that the individual provide a social security number (and  corporate entities would have to file Taxpayer ID numbers).  While the FCC promised to keep those identification numbers private, security issues were not addressed and questions were raised why the Commission had to put so many individuals through so much of a burden when the FCC reports had not been adopted to track individual ownership interests, but instead to track the minority ownership of broadcast stations.  Other issues with the new forms were also raised, as the new forms would have required many filings for stations held in independent corporations, but with a common parent company as parent companies cannot simply cross-reference multiple licensee companies that they own, but instead have to file multiple ownership reports for each licensee company in which they have an interest.  In addition, ownership structures and other broadcast interests can no longer be identified by PDF attachments, but they instead needed to be separately entered into their own fields on the new form.  The idea was to make the information searchable – but it would also result in vastly more time to prepare these reports.Continue Reading So What Happened to Those New Ownership Reports that Were Supposed to Be Filed on November 1?

Broadcasting and Cable magazine today reported that the FCC is looking to back off some of the requirements for the "enhanced disclosure" of television broadcaster’s public interest programming (see our summary of the new requirements of FCC Form 355, here).  B&C reports that the FCC may lessen or at least better explain…

Last week, the Office of Management and Budget determined that the FCC’s new rules on Leased Access to cable channels (see our bulletin describing those rules) violated the Paperwork Reduction Act. This means that the new rules, which would have significantly lowered the cost for parties who wanted to lease cable channels to provide their own programming, will be sent back to the FCC for further consideration.  These rules are also on appeal to the Courts, which had stayed the effectiveness of the rules while the appeal is being considered, which is usually a good indication that the Court had issues with the rules as well.  The OMB action has the effect of returning the rules back to the FCC to be considered anew in light of the OMB findings.  Our firm has prepared a memo detailing the decision, here.  Given the OMB decision that these rules imposed too great a burden on cable systems, one wonders if this decision portends a similar result when the OMB reviews the FCC’s rules on Enhanced Disclosure and an on-line public inspection file – rules that would impose a significant burden on television broadcasters (about which we wrote here).

The OMB decision on the leased access rules highlighted some of the perceived shortcomings of the FCC decision, including that the FCC had not shown that they had taken steps to minimize the burden on companies who would have to hire staff to comply with the new rules, and they had not provided reasons why reduced timeframes for responses to requests for leased access were necessary.  Looking at these standards, one would have to think that much of the same reasoning would apply to the FCC’s Enhanced Disclosure requirements for TV stations as set out in the new Form 355.  The completion of the Form would clearly require the hiring of new staff.  We’ve also questioned whether the Commission has given any justification for the increased paperwork requirements, as the information itself has no regulatory purpose as the FCC has not adopted any quantitative standards for public interest programming.  With no purpose and increased costs, how could the OMB treat the enhanced disclosure requirements differently than it did the leased access requirements?Continue Reading OMB Throws Out Leased Access Rules as Violation of Paperwork Reduction Act – Will TV Enhanced Disclosure Be Next?