The radio industry got few clues about what Anna Gomez thinks about broadcasting during her more than two hours in front of the Senate Commerce Committee on Thursday. Gomez, who has been selected by President Biden to fill a Democratic vacancy on the Federal Communications Commission, was silent on radio-related issues during her testimony, and none of the Senators that quizzed her and Commissioners Brendan Carr and Geoffrey Starks, who are up for new terms, asked them about any of radio’s hot button issues. But Gomez did offer her support for local broadcasters in general terms.
“Local broadcasting is so important,” said Gomez, who noted the role radio and television play during emergencies. But she also noted the business is facing challenges from streaming services. “The economic model is getting more and more challenging given the changes in the marketplace,” Gomez said. “If confirmed, I would certainly want to work with the Committee to understand this issue and delve into the causation and what the Commission can do, given the current law,” she told lawmakers.
Gomez and the rest of the Commission may soon have another opportunity to address those issues. Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell (D-WA) said she plans to ask FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel to breathe fresh life into a proceeding, launched in 2014, that would examine the bargaining relationship between the streaming services and local television stations. Cantwell said she wants to ensure that the streamers are negotiating “in good faith” and are paying broadcasters “fair value for their content” in a changing media landscape.
President Biden selected Gomez last month for the FCC. She has spent much of her working years in Washington, including several previous stops at the FCC for a combined 12 years. Gomez spent nine years as a telecommunications attorney at the Washington law firm Wiley Rein. She worked at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration during the Obama administration from 2009 to 2013, a move that followed a stint at the FCC during which she was a legal advisor to former FCC Chair Bill Kennard and was Deputy Chief in both the International Bureau and Common Carrier Bureau.
Since January, Gomez has worked at the State Department where she leads U.S. preparations for the International Telecommunication Union World Radiocommunication Conference 2023 set for Dubai in November and December. Because of that role, some Republicans have suggested that Gomez should delay joining the FCC to first finish her State Department work.
“I think it would be difficult for you to step back from the role,” Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said Thursday. But Gomez told the Committee that the State Department is making contingency plans in the event she is confirmed as an FCC commissioner.
Broadcast issues may have gotten short shrift during the Senate hearing, but issues connected to broadband were front and center. That included the expected move by Rosenworcel to revive net neutrality regulations once she has a third Democrat on the Commission. Gomez made it clear during her testimony that she would provide that vote.
“The commission should have robust authority over broadband Internet access,” Gomez said. “It is central to our lives and is central to getting access to education, rural health care; doing work on this during the pandemic, it is too important not to have oversight by the Commission,” she said.
Gomez’s nomination has been packaged with new terms for Carr and Starks, and that strategy to help ease her through a process that hung-up the prior nominee seems to have worked. Senators offered cordial questioning for the two incumbent commissioners, with a consensus that the FCC needs to return to full strength for the first time since former Chair Ajit Pai exited in January 2021.
It is a sentiment shared be some outside the Commission, who have complained the 2-2 deadlock has hamstrung Rosenworcel from taking on issues such as media ownership.
“The FCC has been deadlocked for two-and-a-half years, a long and frustrating delay that is without precedent in the modern history of this agency,” said Free Press Action Policy Director Joshua Stager. “We urge all senators on the Commerce Committee to support these nominees and vote them out of committee before departing for the August recess. We’ve waited far too long for a fully functional FCC, and there’s no time to waste,” he said.
The National Association of Broadcasters has thrown its support behind Gomez’s nomination, saying she has a “wealth of experience in media and telecommunications” and a “demonstrated ability to work with industry, manufacturers and consumers.”