Report: FCC To Be Blasted On Process Reform By Rep. Greg Walden At House Panel Hearing Wednesday

Walden

In advance of WEDNESDAY's House Communications Subcommittee hearing on the FCC's processes, Subcommittee Chairman GREG WALDEN (R-OR)'s opening remarks were leaked to BROADCASTING AND CABLE's JOHN EGGERTON, and WALDEN is apparently displeased with the way the Commission works.

In the remarks, WALDEN says that since the last hearing and testimony by Chairman TOM WHEELER, "The FCC’s responses to our questions, reports submitted by the Inspector General and reports in the media raise serious concerns as to whether the FCC’s house is in order."  WALDEN expresses doubt about WHEELER's argument that it is hamstrung by budgetary constraints, saying, "the solution to the commission’s woes is not simply to throw more money at the problem, but to use the money available to the commission more effectively. Nowhere is this more evident than in the FCC’s IT expenditures ... (the FCC) has spent more than $358 million in the last five years on IT. How much of that was wasted on the FCC’s disastrous revamp of its website?  How much is now being spent to 'fix' the website that then-FCC CIO STEVE VANROEKEL said would pay for itself in just nine months? And, how much was spent on the commission’s public efforts to consolidate aging licensing systems, only to have the project simply disappear, years of work apparently abandoned?"

WHEELER will not attend the hearing, but Managing Dir. JON WILKINS and Inspector General DAVID HUNT will be testifying.

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