The Telecommunications Industry Association underscored the necessity of...

The Telecommunications Industry Association underscored the necessity of passing the FCC Process Reform Act (HR-3675) into law, and praised the House for its scheduled floor vote Tuesday.

The House that night did pass the bill, in a floor vote that evening. It’s a “much-needed bill that makes common-sense improvements to the FCC’s regulatory process, such as allowing a bipartisan majority of the Commission to meet for private discussions, and increasing transparency in the rulemaking process,” said TIA President Grant Seiffert in a statement. “The legislation will also serve as an effective complement for, and backstop to, process reforms recently proposed by the FCC. These FCC proposals include several further reforms strongly supported by TIA, such as the use of electronic labeling, improvements to the equipment approval process and reducing agency backlogs.” House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., plans to speak in favor of the legislation on the House floor. “I support the bill before us today because it gives the FCC flexibility to evaluate and adopt procedural changes to its rules, rather than putting rigid requirements in statute,” Eshoo will say, according to her statement for the record. “The bill enhances transparency by establishing a publicly available, searchable consumer complaint database and provides” the USF with a short-term Antideficiency Act exemption, she said. The bill cleared the Commerce Committee in December after a bipartisan compromise was reached. Industry consensus is that the legislation will pass the House rather easily but stall in the Senate (CD March 11 p5). TIA Vice President-Government Relations Danielle Coffey agreed. “It will likely see more resistance in the Senate” despite what she judges to be “common-sense provisions,” such as killing “antiquated” process rules, Coffey told us. The House plans a floor vote on the legislation under suspension of the rules, which requires a two-thirds majority, but had not voted at our deadline.