House Panel Chiefs Ask GAO To Probe FCC Enforcement Bureau Performance Measures

GAO Probe?

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman FRED UPTON (R-MI) and Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman GREG WALDEN (R-OR) and Vice-Chairman BOB LATTA (R-OH) have sent a letter to Comptroller General GENE L. DODARO at the Government Accountability Office asking the GAO to investigate the FCC's Enforcement Bureau.

The letter, noting the Committee's ongoing concern with the FCC's process and its several inquiries and panels regarding the Commission's efforts to address their concerns, points out that the GAO made recommendations seven years ago to improve data collection and analysis, provide Congress with more information to hold the Commission accountable, and define management practices with specific goals and performance measures, but that "it appears from Commission responses and staff briefings that in the intervening years no consistent metrics -- and at times, none whatsoever -- were in place for the Enforcement Bureau."

The letter complains that the only metric being used by the Commission and the Enforcement Bureau is the yearly monetary value of proposed fines, and that the backlog of consumer complaints under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and enforcement against pirate radio stations are "adrift" while the Commission proposes cutting 11 of 24 field offices.

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