[Congressional Bills 112th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 611 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

112th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                 S. 611

      To provide greater technical resources to FCC Commissioners.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                             March 17, 2011

 Ms. Snowe (for herself and Mr. Warner) introduced the following bill; 
    which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, 
                      Science, and Transportation

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
      To provide greater technical resources to FCC Commissioners.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``FCC Technical Expertise Capacity 
Heightening Act'' or the ``FCC TECH Act''.

SEC. 2. APPOINTMENT OF TECHNICAL STAFF.

    Section 4(f)(2) of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 
154(f)(2)) is amended by inserting after the first sentence the 
following new sentence: ``Each commissioner may also appoint an 
electrical engineer or computer scientist to provide the commissioner 
technical consultation when appropriate and to interface with the 
Office of Engineering and Technology, Commission Bureaus, and other 
technical staff of the Commission for additional technical input and 
resources, provided that such engineer or scientist holds an 
undergraduate or graduate degree from an institution of higher 
education in their respective field of expertise.''.

SEC. 3. TECHNICAL POLICY AND PERSONNEL STUDY.

    (a) Study.--
            (1) Requirements of study.--The Chairman of the Federal 
        Communications Commission (hereafter in this section referred 
        to as the ``Commission'') shall enter into an arrangement with 
        the National Academy of Sciences to complete a study of the 
        technical policy decisionmaking and the technical personnel at 
        the Commission.
            (2) Contents.--The study required under paragraph (1) 
        shall--
                    (A) review the technical policy decisionmaking of 
                the Commission, including if the Commission has the 
                adequate resources and processes in place to properly 
                evaluate and account for the technical aspects and 
                impact of the Commission's regulatory rulemaking;
                    (B) review--
                            (i) the timeliness of the rulemaking 
                        process utilized by the Commission; and
                            (ii) the impact of regulatory delay on 
                        telecommunications innovation;
                    (C) based upon the review undertaken pursuant to 
                subparagraph (B), make recommendations for the 
                Commission to streamline its rulemaking process;
                    (D) evaluate the current staffing levels and skill 
                sets of technical personnel at the Commission to 
                determine if such staffing levels and skill sets are 
                aligned with the current and future needs of the 
                Commission, as well as with current and future issues 
                that come or may come under the jurisdiction of the 
                Commission and shall include a recommendation on the 
                appropriate number or percentage of technical personnel 
                that should constitute the Commission workforce;
                    (E) examine the current technical staff and 
                engineering recruiting procedures at the Commission and 
                make recommendations on how the Commission can improve 
                its efforts to hire and retain engineers and other 
                technical staff members;
                    (F) examine--
                            (i) the reliance of the Commission on 
                        external contractors in the development of 
                        policy and in evaluating the technical aspects 
                        of services, devices, and issues that arise 
                        under the jurisdiction of the Commission; and
                            (ii) the potential costs and benefits of 
                        the development of ``in-house'' resources to 
                        perform the duties that are currently being 
                        outsourced to external contractors; and
                    (G) compare the decisionmaking process of the 
                Commission with the decisionmaking process used by 
                similar regulatory authorities in other industrialized 
                countries, including the European Union, Japan, Canada, 
                Australia, and the United Kingdom.
    (b) Report.--The Commission shall transmit a report describing the 
results of the study and recommendations required by subsection (a) to 
the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation of the Senate 
and the Committee on Energy and Commerce of the House of 
Representatives.
    (c) Offset of Administrative Costs.--Section 4(a) of Public Law 
109-34 (47 U.S.C. 703(a)) is amended by striking ``annual'' and 
inserting ``biennial''.
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