“I believe that transparency is best achieved through the creation and publication of clear rules. However, for the regulatory regime to be successful, these rules must also be strictly enforced. Based on personal experience, I know that the U.S. regulatory model has only been successful when the FCC has enforced its rules vigorously. Failure to enforce rules sends the inappropriate signal that companies may engage in anticompetitive behavior or other unlawful conduct with impunity.” -- Remarks of Commissioner Kathleen Q. Abernathy, Market Reform: A Tool for Achieving Universal Access Panel, ITU Global Symposium for Regulators. Geneva, Switzerland, December 8, 2003

Under current legislation, enforcement is an integral part of the FCC’s job. But it is a lot more fun creating new services and issuing licenses than it is penalizing people for antisocial actions. But as Comm. Abernathy said above during her tenure at FCC, the two go hand in hand.

Thus it is interesting to note the current list of Items on Circulation. There are now 32 items on circulation on the 8th Floor - a major decrease over the historic level! Of the 19 items that have been on circulation for more than 3 months, 8 appear to be enforcement related. These include 3 from the June-September 2008 period that have now spent almost 2 years on the 8th Floor without resolution. The list of all items on circulation more than 3 months is below:

So on today, the 6 month anniversary of our enforcement complaint being on the circulation list, we will not complain about that. But we ask what is served by having these other matters pending for such a long period. Note that this date shown below is only the date that the agenda item reached the 8th Floor. Each issue probably was pending for a long time before it ever got to that high level.