606 CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO NEVADA 204 RUSSELL SENATE O FFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON, DC 20510 (202) 224- 3542 FAx: (202) 224-7327 ilnitrd ~tatrs ~rnatr CortezMasto.Senate.Gov Mr. Adjit Pai Chairman Federal Communications Commission 445 12th Street, SW, Room 8-C453 Washington, DC 20554 Dear Chairman Pai: July 19, 2017 COMMITIEES: BANKING, HOUSING, AND URBAN AFFAIRS COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES AG ING INDIAN AFFAIRS RULES AND A MINISTRATION During a speech at the Hudson Institute on April 5, 2017, and a subsequent hearing before the Senate Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Subcommittee on June 20, 2017, you discussed your plans to form an Office of Economics and Data (OED) within the Chairman' s office at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). I am writing you today to request answers to questions I have regarding your consideration to create such an office inside the FCC. While I support the use of economic analysis and metrics in the decision making process, I would like additional information on your plans for this office to ensure that this office' s information does not have negative impacts on consumers and the broader economy as a whole. I appreciate your offer to provide Congressional appropriators with your plan to create the OED, and ask that you respectfully provide the plan to members of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee for review. Given that oversight of the FCC falls under the jurisdiction of the Commerce Committee, my colleagues and I have a vested interest in the details of your proposal. As you have indicated, the Office will be staffed by existing full-time employees and will not require additional personnel. Given the potential breadth and scope of an OED, this could amount to a very significant reorganization of the FCC as a whole. I would appreciate your response addressing: 1. Which employees will be staffing the OED and what responsibilities do these employees currently hold; 2. How will these employees' current responsibilities be adequately covered with no additional staffing; 3. What quality controls will you provide to ensure that the OED produces balanced, non­ partisan research within the FCC's purview; 4. The process by which OED analysis will be made publicly available; 5. How this OED will work in coordination with the public interest standard statutorily required of the FCC that reviews transactions on a basis beyond "purely economic outcomes";Pl IIJ Jon Sallet, FCC General Counsel , "FCC Transaction Review: Competition and the Public Interest," (August 12, 2 0 14) on I in e at: bJ111'i.d.~YlY_~j1:_t;..,gQ v / n e~~=-e 'Cn ts/b I o /2 0 14/Q_8ll2L.!~I.:!IJin sac ti Oll -rev i evy_:_~9JJ}J2Ct it i