New Chief of the F.C.C. Is Confirmed
Mary F. Calvert for The New York Times
Tom Wheeler testified before the Senate Commerce Committee in June.
By EDWARD WYATT
Published: October 29, 2013
WASHINGTON — The Senate voted unanimously on Tuesday to confirm President Obama’s two nominations to the Federal Communications Commission, overcoming obstacles by Republican lawmakers.
Jim Bourg/Reuters
Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, had held up the nomination of Tom Wheeler to be the next chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.
The vote came after Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, lifted a hold earlier in the day on the nomination of Tom Wheeler as chairman, with Mr. Cruz saying he had received assurances from him that the commission would not immediately pursue changes for political advertising on television.
Mr. Wheeler was confirmed along with Michael O’Rielly as a commissioner, filling the two F.C.C. seats that have been empty since the previous chairman and a Republican member announced their resignations in March.
Mr. Cruz had blocked consideration of Mr. Wheeler’s nomination two weeks ago, saying he was worried that Mr. Wheeler would push the F.C.C. to expand disclosure requirements for political advertisements on television.
That became an issue in the 2012 elections after the Supreme Court ruled that corporations and unions could make unlimited donations to political groups. The F.C.C.’s regulations on political advertising imply that such disclosure is required, but the F.C.C. has not forced the issue. Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia, and chairman of the Commerce Committee, said in a statement on Tuesday that it was a crucial time for the commission, with the F.C.C. “facing decisions that will shape the future of our nation’s telephone network, and the wireless, broadband and video industries.”
Before the vote, Mr. Cruz said that Mr. Wheeler had “stated that he had heard the unambiguous message” that Congress, rather than the F.C.C., should decide on requiring full disclosure in political advertising. At a confirmation hearing in June, Mr. Cruz warned Mr. Wheeler that the issue “has the potential to derail your nomination.”
Mr. Wheeler referred any questions concerning his nomination to the White House. A Democratic official with knowledge of Mr. Wheeler’s meeting with Mr. Cruz said the nominee discussed his priorities with the senator and said that the issue required more study.
Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, also removed another roadblock in the way of the F.C.C. nominations on Tuesday.
Mr. Graham had said he would prevent any confirmation votes until the Obama administration allowed survivors of last year’s attack on the American Mission in Benghazi, Libya, to testify before Congress. But Mr. Graham issued a statement on Tuesday saying that he would not block the F.C.C. nominees because the nominations predated his hold related to Libya.
Although Mr. Cruz’s action cleared the way for the nominations to go through, it also appeared to stymie some Democrats’ efforts to get the commission, under Mr. Wheeler’s direction, to use its regulatory power to do what the Senate has failed to do. In 2012, Democrats fell a single vote short of passing the Disclose Act, which would have required the public disclosure of contributors to so-called super PACs, the anonymously financed lobbying groups that can engage in unlimited political spending independent of any candidate’s campaign.
At his nomination hearing in June, Mr. Wheeler dodged a question from Mr. Cruz about whether the F.C.C. had the authority to regulate political speech. “That’s an issue that I look forward to learning more about,” Mr. Wheeler said.
Critics of unlimited political donations have pushed the commission to fill in the blanks left by the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision. F.C.C. regulations require that a television station “fully and fairly disclose the true identity of the person or persons or corporation, committee, associate or other unincorporated group or entity” that sponsors a political ad, and that the station post that information online.
But the F.C.C. has not said whether the requirement goes beyond the “I approved this message” tagline or the tiny gray type that appears on-screen at the end of most political ads.
In April 2012, the F.C.C. approved new regulations that required broadcast television stations to make their public service requirement files available online. Those files include information on the buyers of political advertising. Previously, stations were required only to maintain the files at their office and make them available for public inspection.
Some Democrats pushed for the commission to require more disclosure. But critics of the idea noted that the F.C.C. had authority only over broadcast channels — not cable stations, websites, newspapers or other media commonly used for political advertising.
The confirmations of Mr. Wheeler and Mr. O’Rielly bring the agency back to its full strength of five commissioners — three of them Democrats and two Republicans — and will allow the commission to get to work on several pressing issues that have not moved forward since the former chairman, Julius Genachowski, announced his resignation in March.
Those issues include the structuring of so-called spectrum incentive auctions, in which the commission would sell licenses to mobile phone and broadband companies allowing them to use newly available bands of the public airwaves to transmit phone and data traffic.
Unlike previous F.C.C. auctions of airwaves, these auctions have several moving parts. The F.C.C. first has to persuade the current license holders to use the airwave bands — mostly television broadcast stations — to either give up their spots or agree to move to another location in the electromagnetic field over which radio signals travel.
As an incentive to get those television stations to cooperate, Congress gave the F.C.C. permission to offer to share some of the proceeds of the auctions with the stations. Most of the remainder of the proceeds are designated for use in building a new nationwide public safety network for use by first responders.
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