Republicans ask watchdog to probe FCC enforcement arm

House Republicans are asking the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to investigate whether the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is making good use of its enforcement arm. 

The leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee asked for a follow-up to a 2008 GAO study that recommended the commission develop a broader strategy to make sure the fines and punishments it hands down are actually deterring bad behavior. 

{mosads}“Notwithstanding GAO’s recommendations, 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 lawmakers wrote in a letter to the GAO. 

The letter was signed by committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.), Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) and Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio). 

The FCC receives tens of thousands of complaints each year on issues such as unwanted robocalls, phone billing and TV quality. It also recently appointed an ombudsman to deal with net neutrality complaints against Internet service providers. 

The FCC issued some of the largest fines in agency history in the past year against major wireless providers and has been aggressive in publicizing the work of the agency’s enforcement bureau chief, Travis LeBlanc. 

The vast majority of consumer complaints deal with robocalling, and the FCC recently began publishing weekly robocalling complaints online in order to spur phone companies and third parties to develop better call-blocking technology. 

However, few complaints ever lead to enforcement action. 

Republicans point out that enforcement action on robocalling and pirate radio in particular have dropped significantly in recent years. They speculated that the FCC’s lack of a comprehensive strategy might have played a role. They also pointed to the FCC’s planned closure of a number of field offices. 

“We are also concerned as to what role, if any, the apparent absence of a well-defined strategy that includes specific goals and performance measures has played in this downturn,” they wrote. 

The FCC appears to use total fines and enforcement actions as substitutes for a comprehensive strategy, the lawmakers wrote. 

The GAO previously said those measurements cannot tell the commission whether enforcement efforts are successfully deterring future abuse. 

“While measures of outputs are useful, measures of outcomes are also important because they can provide FCC with broader information on program results, such as the extent to which its current enforcement efforts are contributing to higher compliance rates or fewer repeat violations or whether other types of enforcement action may be needed to deter noncompliance,” the GAO wrote in its 2008 report.