The American Cable Association definitely has an ally in Republican FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, who clearly signaled he is ready to wield FCC chairman Ajit Pai's famous regulatory "weed whacker."
At a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Telecommunications & E-Commerce Committee, he hit on a longstanding theme of ACA's Washington advocacy--the disparate impact of regulatory paperwork on its members.
Citing an upcoming FCC vote to eliminate some legacy paperwork filing requirements, Carr posited the Dunder Mifflin Rule: "If the only beneficiary of a regulation is the paper supply industry, the regulation is void ab initio [from the outset]."
On a more serious note, he said that the cumulative burdens on small businesses of too many rules on the books are "staggering."
Last year, he said, "I met with small and rural broadband providers that told me that the Commission’s paperwork and reporting obligations alone now consume 23 weeks of work per year or five months of full-time labor....These small businesses are not corporate behemoths. They do not have, and simply cannot afford, an army of regulatory lawyers. If we can eliminate these wasteful regulations, small businesses can get back to doing what they do best: serving their customers and creating jobs."
