Federal Communications Commission Process Reform Act of 2012

Floor Speech

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Mr. WELCH. This is a bad bill. H.R. 3309 would create a special set of very vague and unique procedural hurdles for the FCC that apply to no other Agency. It will result in decades of litigation.

We have to have simplicity, and we have to have clarity. This legislation will open up the floodgates of confusion.

It significantly reduces the FCC's ability to take the public into account, and that is the fundamental interest that should be on the minds of this Congress.

It provides endless routes for potentially misguided litigation making every single one of the FCC's regulatory analyses in support of a new rule, not just the rule itself, subject to judicial review. There's going to be regulation or not regulation. This legislation means there's endless litigation.

These requirements would also amend the Communications Act to mandate how the Agency should operate internally, with detailed requirements for the most basic regulatory actions such as specific timelines associated with notice-and-comment rulemaking procedures. This is Congress micromanaging.

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