Senate Commerce Committee Vets FCC Commissioner Nominee Geoffrey Starks

Federal Communications Commission nominee Geoffrey Starks got a thorough vetting by the Senate Commerce Committee June 20, including a charge from Committee Chairman John Thune (R-SD), who said the "hyperpartisanship of the last commission must come to an end" and called on Starks to "seek opportunities for common ground." Chairman Thune suggested the model for that was the current FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and his "spirit of openness, transparency and collaboration" that he encouraged Starks to embrace.

Starks promised to work with his colleagues and the committee for the interests of the American people as consumers, taxpayers and citizens. He said his main priorities would be consumers and the public interest, getting "robust, affordable" broadband to all Americans through the right incentives, and advancing telemedicine--his father is a doctor. He would not say whether he favored a legislative fix for the FCC's net neutrality authority, only saying the FCC was a creature of Congress and would "defer to its legislative priorities." (He came out strongly for the previous FCC's classification of ISPs under Title II common carrier regulations.) Chairman Thune said he would take that as "close to a yes" as he was going to get. Asked if he supported coordination of broadband subsidy programs by the FCC and the Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service, Starks agreed saying one hand needed to know what the other was doing.

Starks, currently assistant bureau chief of the FCC's Enforcement Bureau, is taking the seat of Mignon Clyburn, who exited earlier in June. Starks will get a full, five-year term since Clyburn's term expired in 2017. The committee is expected to approve Starks' nomination, which then would proceed to a full Senate vote (the House does not get to weigh in on nominations). Chairman Thune said he hoped Starks could be confirmed by the full Senate quickly, and in that spirit asked for answers to written questions from the committee by June 25.