The House Communications Subcommittee has scheduled a mark-up July 24 and 25 for two FCC reform bills. Opening statements will be July 24, followed by the mark-up July 25. Marking up a bill means amending and, usually, voting on reporting the bill out to the full committee (Energy & Commerce) for its vote.
In a hearing on the bills two weeks ago, witnesses were divided over the proposals, and the panel remained poles apart, politically. The bills, the FCC Process Reform Act and the FCC Consolidated Reporting Act, would put shot clocks on decisions, limit merger conditions, consolidate FCC reports and much more.
They will likely make it through the Republican-controlled subcommittee and full committee and even the House, but they are similar to bills that went nowhere in the Senate in the last Congress and are not expected to make it to law this time around either.
