The House Energy & Commerce Committee will hold a meeting Thursday to
formally name subcommittee chairmen, ranking members and members, and adopt
committee rules and various jurisdictions.
Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) has
promised that one of the first orders of business will be to hold oversight
hearings, and likely launch investigations, into the FCC's adoption last month
of network neutrality rules.
Look for some Republican attention to the Comcast/NBCU deal
if that is done by the time of the first hearing and includes the network
neutrality conditions in the draft proposal, which are actually tougher than
those voted on by the FCC.
Greg Walden of Oregon has already been named chair of theCommunications Subcommittee,
and Mary Bono Mack of California chair of the Trade & Commerce
Subcommittee.
Both those subcommittees are expected to hold oversight
hearings on network neutrality.
Walden has long been a voice for broadcaster concerns on the
subcommittee, bringing the perspective of a station group owner, though he has
since sold his five radio stations.
