By Laura Stefani, CommLawBlog, July 19, 2015
Moving to "refocus" and "update" field office operations, FCC preserves more offices than originally anticipated, but some field personnel will lose jobs.
A few months ago, we reported on Chairman Wheeler's then-rumored plan to eliminate 16 of the Commission's 24 Field Offices. (The plan, as described by Wheeler himself in testimony on Capitol Hill, would have replaced the decommissioned offices with "Tiger Teams" that would fly around the country to respond to unlawful interference.) Reports of the plan triggered considerable controversy which in turn triggered some old-fashioned D.C. lobbying (by both regulatees and field office employees) which then prompted Congressional intervention.
The result? In a terse order long on bureaucratese and short on detail, the FCC has announced that 11 of the 24 Field Offices (down from the 16 originally proposed) will be shuttered.
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Neal McLain