Last week the FCC commissioners voted to restructure the agency and create an Office of Economics and Analytics. Hopefully the new Office will give some rigor to the “public interest standard” that guides most FCC decisions. It’s important the FCC formally inject economics in to public interest determinations, perhaps much like the Australian telecom regulator’s “total welfare standard,” which is basically a social welfare calculation plus consideration of “broader social impacts.”
In contrast, the existing “standard” has several components and subcomponents (some of them contradictory) depending on the circumstances; that is, it’s no standard at all. As the first general counsel of the Federal Radio Commission, Louis Caldwell, said of the public interest standard, it means
as little as any phrase that the drafters of the Act could have used and still comply with the constitutional requirement that there be some standard to guide the administrative wisdom of the licensing authority.
Unfortunately, this means public interest determinations are largely shielded from serious court scrutiny. As Judge Posner said of the standard in Schurz Communications v. FCC,
So nebulous a mandate invests the Commission with an enormous discretion and correspondingly limits the practical scope of responsible judicial review.
Posner colorfully characterized FCC public interest analysis in that case:
The Commission’s majority opinion … is long, but much of it consists of boilerplate, the recitation of the multitudinous parties’ multifarious contentions, and self-congratulatory rhetoric about how careful and thoughtful and measured and balanced the majority has been in evaluating those contentions and carrying out its responsibilities. Stripped of verbiage, the opinion, like a Persian cat with its fur shaved, is alarmingly pale and thin.
Every party who does significant work before the FCC has agreed with Judge Posner’s sentiments at one time or another.
Which brings us to the Office of Economics and Analytics. Cost-benefit analysis has its limits, but economic rigor is increasingly important as the FCC turns its attention away from media regulation and towards spectrum assignment and broadband subsidies.
The worst excesses of FCC regulation are in the past where, for instance, one broadcaster’s staff in 1989 “was required to review 14,000 pages of records to compile information for one [FCC] interrogatory alone out of 299.” Or when, say, FCC staff had to sift through and consider 60,000 TV and radio “fairness” complaints in 1970. These regulatory excesses were corrected by economists (namely, Ronald Coase’s recommendation that spectrum licenses be auctioned, rather than given away for free by the FCC after a broadcast “beauty contest” hearing), but history shows that FCC proceedings spiral out of control without the agency intending it.
Since Congress gave such a nebulous standard, the FCC is always at risk of regressing. Look no further than the FCC’s meaningless “Internet conduct standard” from its 2015 Open Internet Order. This “net neutrality” regulation is a throwback to the bad old days, an unpredictable conduct standard that–like the Fairness Doctrine–would constantly draw the FCC into social policy activism and distract companies with interminable FCC investigations and unknowable compliance requirements.
In the OIO’s mercifully short life, we saw glimpses of the disputes that would’ve distracted the agency and regulated companies. For instance, prominent net neutrality supporters had wildly different views about whether a common practice, “zero rating” of IP content, by T-Mobile violated the Internet conduct standard. Chairman Tom Wheeler initially called it “highly innovative and highly competitive” while Harvard professor Susan Crawford said it was “dangerous” and “malignant” and should be outlawed “immediately.” The nearly year-long FCC investigations into zero rating and the equivocal report sent a clear, chilling message to ISPs and app companies: 20 years of permissionless innovation for the Internet was long enough. Submit your new technologies and business plans to us or face the consequences.
Fortunately, by rescinding the 2015 Order and creating the new economics Office, Chairman Pai and his Republican colleagues are improving the outlook for the development of the Internet. Hopefully the Office will make social welfare calculations a critical part of the public interest standard.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.