Amy Levine is the latest senior advisor to exit the FCC. Levine has been senior counsel and legal advisor to Chairman Julius Genachowski.
Charles Mathias, currently associate bureau chief in the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, will be acting legal advisor.
Levine's departure was attributed to her relocation from the D.C. area. Levine has been overseeing agency spectrum policy, a huge issue as the commission prepares the rules for its upcoming spectrum incentive auctions and otherwise looks to free up spectrum for mobile broadband. She also advised on wireless and public safety issues.
Levine came from the office of former Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), onetime chair of the House Communications Subcommittee, where she was a top communications policy advisor, reprising a similar role for Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), former chair of the parent Energy & Commerce committee.
Genachowski praised Levine for a "rare combination" of legislative expertise, policy smarts and consensus-building, and said that Mathias will "will step right in to maintain our momentum" on unleashing mobile broadband.
Levine's exit follows that of Consumer Bureau chief Joel Gurin in February, Paul De Sa, chief of the FCC's office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis, and FCC Chief of Staff Eddie Lazarus, who have all exited since the beginning of the year.
