Subject: FCC fiscal inadequacy (Newton)...
Date: Thu, 7 Oct 1999 120917 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Roy L. Beavers"
To: emfguru
--------------------------------------------------
........This is no surprise..... But it does say something (frightening)
about the same agency that (through default) now has its finger on the
control of public health effects caused by electromagnetic transmissions
of cell phones, etc......
Only those of us who have actually worked in the Washington bureaucracy
can fully appreciate how "cozy" these relationships can get -- between
the regulators and the regulated.....
Cheerio.....
Roy Beavers (EMFguru)......
rbeavers@llion.org.......
.....It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.....
EMF-L web-site can be found at:
EMF-L archives can be found at:
..................PEOPLE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN PROFITS..................
...........DO YOU KNOW OF OTHERS WHO SHOULD BE ON THIS LIST??????........
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 07 Oct 1999 12:41:27 -0400
From: Newtons at Fruitlands
To: rbeavers@llion.org, thistle@sover.net, thistle2@sover.net
Subject: FCC fiscal lapse
Date: Thu, 7 Oct 1999 12:32:13 -0400
Subject: FCC fiscal lapse
Reply-to: Mark@MarkHutchins.com
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WASHINGTON--The Federal Communications Commission's accounting
system for handling millions of dollars in licensing and regulatory fees has
such serious shortcomings that it cannot accurately track whether
broadcasters and cable operators are paying what they owe, a Senate
subcommittee said.
A report prepared by the General Accounting Office for the Senate's
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations found that the FCC's cable
bureau was unable to determine whether fees were properly collected on
71% of its applications, and that the mass media bureau had inadequate
documentation for 59% of its applications. The subcommittee said at
least hundreds of thousands of dollars in regulatory fees go uncollected
by the FCC each year because the agency doesn't have a mechanism to
identify which telecommunications companies must pay.
The FCC did its own study of fees in 1998 and told the Treasury
Department that more than 800 radio stations owed the agency about
$600,000. The FCC also told the Treasury it was owed about $15 million in
penalties at the end of fiscal 1998. To dramatize the alleged fiscal
lapse at the agency, a subcommittee investigator filed an application
with the FCC on behalf of a fictitious phone company and got FCC approval
without paying the required $600 application fee. "It is troubling and
sadly ironic that the Federal Communications Commission--an agency
charged with regulating technologically sophisticated industries--did not
implement an accounting system capable of determining if it is collecting
the money it is owed," said Sen.Susan Collins (R-Maine), chairwoman of
the investigations subcommittee.
Regulatory fees imposed on broadcasters, satellite operators, phone
carriers and other telecommunications companies were instituted by
Congress in 1993 to offset the FCC's administrative costs.
The various fees provided about 70% of the FCC's $222-million 1998
budget, the GAO said.
The problem is largely caused by the FCC's failure to link its
fee-collection database to its licensing database, the
GAO said. It is compounded by the task of keeping track of the rapidly
fluctuating assets of huge media companies. FCC officials declined to
comment publicly about the GAO report. But privately some said the
burgeoning world of telecommunications doesn't easily lend
itself to fee collection.
FCC fees based on the number of subscribers served or stations owned, for
instance, are nearly impossible to accurately calculate in today's
merger-crazed climate. On Wednesday, top FCC officials acknowledged that
they don't even know if AT&T's cable holdings exceed current FCC ownership
limits because so many cable system transactions are pending at AT&T,
which recently acquired cable giant Tele-Communications Inc. The GAO
report noted that the FCC has begun taking steps to address the
problem.
Copyright 1999 Los Angeles Times. All Rights Reserved
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CITIZENS WORKING FOR VERMONT
Archive provided courtesy of WaveGuide, http://www.wave-guide.org
Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.emfguru.com