WASHINGTON—The Federal Communications Commission has unanimously voted to pass a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that the agency said would codify certain foreign ownership requirements and streamline its review processes.
The vote came at the FCC’s April Open meeting with chairman Brendan Carr and commissioners Geoffrey Starks, Nathan Simington, and Anna Gomez voting to approve the NPR.
The move comes in the wake of widespread concerns about foreign influence over U.S. political systems. It is also an attempt to balance those national security concerns with policies that don’t discourage legitimate foreign investments in U.S. companies and infrastructures.
The FCC explained over the last decade it has faced increasingly complex foreign ownership structures that made it harder to handle requests for licenses. In response to that complexity, the Commission adopted certain practices but has never codified them into its rules. That made it harder for companies and organizations to navigate FCC requirements, a problem that the agency is now attempting to address by with the NPR to define and simplify these requirements.
“If you take the FCC’s Code of Federal Regulations and stack it up end to end, it can seem like a pretty daunting tower of regulations,” Carr said in a statement. “But wait there’s more! The FCC also has a significant set of regulatory requirements that are off the books.”
“Having unwritten—or at least uncodified—rules is not very efficient,” Carr added. “This only makes it harder for entities to understand and navigate our requirements. And it risks inconsistent outcomes, needlessly raises costs, and wastes staff resources.”
Carr stressed that the NPR would codify those requirements and at the same time simplify “outdated rules when possible…To that end, we propose streamlining our review process, and we are seeking comment on identifying and eliminating any unnecessary or burdensome rules that we find along the way.”
These efforts would both bring in foreign investment that creates jobs and address national security concerns about foreign ownership, the FCC contended.
The NPR proposes these to address the following issues for both broadcast and common carriers seeking licensees::
- Codify existing practice regarding the designation of controlling U.S. parent;
- Clarify the Commission’s advance approval rules regarding certain deemed voting interests;
- Require identification of trusts and trustees;
- Extend the methodology for determining foreign ownership and remedial process to privately held companies;
- Clarify U.S. residency requirements; and
- Codify requirements regarding the contents of remedial petitions.
The agency also said it will also take public comment on a number of topics including alleviating unnecessary regulatory burdens, filing of amendments, and processing broadcast applications during the remedial process, as well as other foreign ownership considerations related to the processing of applications for noncommercial educational and low power FM stations.
