Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski is a big advocate of net neutrality. The agency is considering implementing rules that would greatly advance this goal.
Opponents have described the effort as a government plan to take over and manage the internet. However, it seems Genachowski actions are raising questions about the FCC’s ability to regulate with any degree of competence. On Wednesday, Genachowski requested a one-month extension of the deadline for the FCC to formulate a national broadband plan. Under current law, the FCC is supposed to hand over its national broadband plan to Congress on or before February 17.
According to Colin Cromwell, a senior adviser to Genachowski, the Agency needs more time to:
“fully brief commissioners and key members of Congress, to get additional input from stakeholders, and to fully digest the exhaustive record before the agency”
However, publicly and privately, critics are slamming Genachowski for mismanagement and an apparent inability to get things done on time. Robert McDowell, a Republican member of the FCC said in a statement this week:
“I am disappointed that the FCC’s broadband team is unable to deliver a national broadband plan to Congress by the statutorily mandated deadline.”
Friday, Neil Fried, a House Energy and Commerce Committee staffer, blasted Genachowski for devoting too much attention to net neutrality (a Genachowski pet cause) and not enough to the broadband plan. Said Fried, “We’ve spent a lot of time on net neutrality. I’m not sure why we didn’t spend that time on statutorily mandated items.”
In addition, one FCC observer told Capitol Confidential that “the inability to meet this deadline constitutes further ammunition for net neutrality opponents who charge that the policy would amount to a government takeover of the internet. These people will assert that the FCC is showing that it’s incapable of covering off work already on its plate in a timely fashion, let alone undertaking that particular, large task.”
It remains to be seen whether Genachowski will get the extension he is pursuing.
President Obama has previously indicated that both net neutrality and universal broadband access are important policy goals, but some telecommunications experts argue that instituting the former could create obstacles to ensuring the latter.