FCC official: Civil rights rules safe under FCC plan

The first step in the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) plan to boost its authority over broadband access will directly address — and settle — concerns that the agency might shirk its civil rights duties, an FCC official said in an interview Thursday.

As the agency embarks on a controversial administrative process to increase regulation over broadband services, public interest advocates have voiced concerns that the agency might cast aside rules supporting minority-owned businesses.

But when the FCC officially begins the process to boost its broadband authority next month by releasing a “notice of inquiry,” the document will include language that speaks directly to civil rights concerns, conveying that the agency will continue to fulfill its previous responsabilities to minority-owned businesses, according to an FCC official who has seen drafts of the forthcoming notice.

Speculation that the FCC might abandon competition rules supporting minority-owned businesses followed Chairman Julius Genachowski’s announcement this month that although the agency will heighten its regulatory authority over broadband, it will limit its role in making competition and pricing rules.

Public interest advocates have wondered if that means the FCC might stop enforcing Section 257 of the amended Communication Act, which mandates the agency keep tabs on how to reduce market barriers to certain minority-owned businesses.

Releasing a notice of inquiry next month is the first step in allowing the FCC to regulate broadband access services as stringently as telephone services, rather than as lightly-regulated “information services.” A federal appeals court decision in April undercut the agency’s authority to move on its central agenda items, spurring it to seek new legal avenues for justifying its actions on broadband issues.

Genachowski has said the ruling put key agenda items at risk, including the expansion of broadband access and the creation of net neutrality rules to make sure Internet service providers do not discriminate against content from certain websites.