FCC transforms mission from policy to enforcement

Federal Communications Commission officials said Friday the agency is still on track to meet its five-year deadline for transforming itself into an enforcement agency rather than one that doles out rules, 18 months into the effort.

"The chairman has asked us to move from rulemaking to enforcing the rules we make," said Kathy Brown, chief of staff for FCC Chairman William Kennard, at a forum held to highlight the status of the strategic plan. "We're holding ourselves to our goals."

Last year, Kennard issued a strategic five-year plan for reforming the agency, just as Capitol Hill lawmakers were exerting pressure on the FCC to change its ways. While lawmakers have backed off their plans to radically reorganize the agency, FCC officials say they're on track to meeting their goal.

Brown said the major hurdles to reform are funding and workload.

"You need money to do it," she said. "The workload also is a hurdle. We have such a load it's hard to plan for the future."

FCC senior managers have been assigned to a handful of steering committees to take a more systematic approach to reform. FCC Secretary Magalie Salas, who heads the Digital Age Steering Committee, said the panel has focused on two out of the four goals-revamping the agency's Web page and job training-in the initial stage of implementing the strategic plan. The committee has postponed the more difficult task of reorganizing the FCC's infrastructure to reflect convergence in the communications industries and creating a "faster, flatter more functional agency."

"We could not work on everything detailed in the strategic plan," she said. "We thought we'd choose two."

The Competition Steering Committee is studying broadband, biennial rules review and merger issues. Bob Pepper, chief of the office of plans and policy, said the committee is working to include the status of mergers on the agency's Web site so the public can more easily track the FCC's progress.

"We're trying to make this an open and as public a process as possible," Pepper said.

Other committees are studying public access to new technologies and spectrum management.