Federal Communications Commission Consolidated Reporting Act of 2017

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for yielding and for managing the time here.

I bring forward this FCC Consolidated Reporting Act because this is a bill that focuses on streamlining government. It focuses on really establishing and identifying areas where we need to improve competition in the telecommunications marketplace and make recommendations to Congress that can help us make better policy for the country. At the same time, we are eliminating a lot of unnecessary reports that are currently burdening not only the people who are out there creating jobs but also the FCC by having eight different reports that are required annually to be filed and to be evaluated by the FCC at disparate times throughout the year, to consolidate all that into one report, one report that focuses on the entire telecommunications marketplace on a biennial basis. That report would come in at the end of the 2-year period so that each new Congress would be presented with very relevant and much more timely information that would help each Congress evaluate if changes and reforms need to be made to the law.

What laws am I talking about, Mr. Speaker? I am talking about in the current marketplace some of these various disparate reports where you might have throughout the year a requirement where a report has to look just at the satellite industry or a report looks just at the cable industry or a report looks just at the landline industry. Mr. Speaker, as we know, all of these industries now compete against each other, and whether you are getting your telecommunications data at home, through a cable, through fiber, through satellite, on your mobile device, it is all ultimately the same content that people are consuming, and all of these companies are competing against each other.

It is not like in the old days where you just had telephone lines and the telephone companies would compete against each other, and then cable companies would compete against each other. Now it is a consolidated marketplace, and it is time that we get all these disparate reports that are outdated and bring them all into one place.

When you look at what this means, they say time is money, and so when all of these reports are required by Federal law, where all of these different entities have to put together reports and a lot of times create documents, paperwork that is unnecessary, that is outdated, that doesn't really reflect what is happening in the marketplace, that is time that they can better spend creating jobs, Mr. Speaker. It is time they can better spend reinvesting so that we can have better broadband as consumers, families across the country that use all of this great telecommunications infrastructure. Let's focus more on competing and creating a better marketplace.

Something else this bill does is get rid of some outdated laws, Mr. Speaker. Do you know there is still a requirement in Federal law, that we get rid of in this bill, that there is a requirement every year that there has to be a telegraph report that studies competition in the telegraph industry. Mr. Speaker, this might have been useful back in 1934 when Congress mandated it. You can go back to the 1830s when Samuel Morse invented the telegraph, but we don't really need to be spending time and legal requirements that there be a report filed annually on competition in the telegraph industry. We get rid of that in this bill.

So often we hear from people around the country, when Congress is contemplating new laws, when are they going to get rid of some of the old laws that are unnecessary on the books? We actually do that in this bill. This has bipartisan support. It is a commonsense piece of legislation that actually streamlines government and focuses on helping increase competition for families across this country.

I urge adoption of this piece of legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 599) to amend the Communications Act of 1934 to consolidate the reporting obligations of the Federal Communications Commission in order to improve congressional oversight and reduce reporting burdens.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous materials in the Record on the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise), the distinguished majority whip of the House.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is an important step toward modernizing the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC has served Americans since 1934, and over the past more than 80 years, this agency has been responsible for overseeing the evolving telecommunications sector, with collecting information and analyzing the state of competition, and the impact of these changes on consumers.

As society has moved from one technology to the next, the FCC has been asked to keep up with the changing technologies, and Congress has directed the Commission with reviewing data and reporting on everything from the telegraph, as Mr. Scalise has indicated, and the AM radio to online video distributions like Hulu and Netflix. This bill will eliminate reports that are no longer necessary and waste time and resources on issues that are no longer critical to consumers.

The bill also recognizes that technology continues to progress and consumers are no longer served by separate voice, data, or video networks. Rather, providers are leveraging the same IP network to provide multiple services over the same network. Providers that were solely video providers now offer voice and data. Companies that thought of themselves as telephone providers are also offering video and broadband services. The game has changed, and we believe that the FCC should change its reporting to reflect the new reality.

This bill consolidates multiple annual or biennial reports that require the agency to evaluate competition in different sectors. We will no longer require a separate mobile wireless or a separate video competition report. Rather, the bill requires the Commission to evaluate the state of competition across multiple tech industries in a single biennial report on competition in the communications marketplace. Our policymakers should be looking at the world as it is, not the world that once existed.

I thank the majority whip for his leadership in sponsoring this bill. He has always shown a keen interest in modernizing the communications marketplace, and I welcome his continued engagement over the 115th Congress, where he serves with such distinction as our whip.

I also thank the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo), the former ranking member, for her work in ensuring that this bill is bipartisan in nature and is successful. I certainly thank Mr. Doyle for his leadership as well.

I urge my colleagues to vote for this bill. I look forward to more bipartisan work on this and other issues in this Congress. I am hopeful that this bill will reach our new President's desk as soon as possible.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 599, the FCC Consolidated Reporting Act. This bill passed the House last Congress with unanimous support after careful negotiations that resulted in a bipartisan agreement. The FCC oversees a wide range of industries that drive economic growth in the Nation. These industries connect businesses to markets large and small, but, most importantly, they deliver innovative new products and services to consumers.

Democrats and Republicans agree that the FCC needs to collect good data to inform the public about these dynamic markets. Good data is important for Congress to have as well so that we can make good policy decisions and conduct oversight of the FCC. At the same time, we have worked to ensure this effort to promote efficiency does not undermine important existing FCC obligations and authorities.

Again, this bill is one I think that all Members can support. I urge its passage today.

Mr. Speaker, I have no other speakers on my side, so I yield back the balance of my time.