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April 25, 2012
The Honorable Julius Genachowski
Chairman
Federal Communications Commission
445 12" Street, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20515
Dear Chairman Genachowski:
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is considering a proposal to require television
broadcasters to post all of their public records on the Internet, which includes their political
files. In the current fiscal environment where both the President and Congressional leaders have
prioritized the elimination of unnecessary government spending, a plan to transition to an online
public file deserves careful scrutiny. To date, the FCC has not adequately assessed the costs or
burdens associated with this proposal, nor articulated the need.
As drafted for comment, this proposal would require the FCC to develop and maintain a new
online database that would host all of the public and political file records, often numbering in the
thousands of pages, for the 1,776 television stations in the United States. Television
broadcasters would bear the cost of uploading these files. This would be a tremendous
undertaking.
We also understand that your draft order would lead to even greater costs than what was outlined
in the notice of proposed rulemaking. For example, the draft asks for stations to provide the
materials to the Commission in their native fonnat rather than a .pdf and will require the FCC to
upload this infonnation onto a cloud system. Has the Commission assessed the station resources
that will be required to man, monitor, and enforce these new provisions? It is imperative that the
Commission and Congress understand the costs associated with these online files, as well as the
plarmed sources of funding, before making any final determinations on this proposal.
The FCC's proposal fails to explain the need for an online public file. As FCC Commissioner
Robert McDowell recently stated, the proposal for an online public file is fixing "what appears to
be a nonexistent problem," since there is little evidence that the current hard copy file is not
available to whoever needs it The Commission must explain the need for this proposal before
implementing such a costly endeavor.
Moreover, the FCC's proposal does not adequately assess its impact on the 74 percent of
television stations that, by FCC estimates, qualify as ''"small entities" subject to the Regulatory
Flexibility Act. This problem is not alleviated by only requiring ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC
stations or affiliates in the top-50 U.S. markets to immediately put new data from political files
online, since many of these stations are in fact small businesses. Given the economic impact of
this proposal, the FCC should explore less burdensome alternatives.
Finally, we find it troubling that the FCC will be requiring the political file to be put online,
which includes proprietary and competitively sensitive infonnation about all political advertising
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requests, including Lowest Unit Charge or other price information in the case of issue
advertisements. We would prefer you require stations to aggregate the spending of individual
candidates and PACs rather than calling for the reporting of all political buys. There are
significant competition issues at play here that warrant careful consideration.
It is critical that Congress better understand the costs and benefits of an online public file,
particularly given the apparent, but unexplained, rush by the FCC to get this completed. As you
are aware, the House recently passed H.R. 3309, the Federal Communications Commission
Process Reform Act of20l2. As proud supporters of this bill we have advocated that agencies
such as yours conduct a cost-benefit analysis before imposing new regulations. We are very
concerned that such an analysis was not conducted here. We look forward to continuing to work
with you as you consider this important issue.
Sincerely,
Brian Bilbray
United States RJ
cc: Commissioner Robert McDowell
Commissioner Mignon Clyburn