DACA Releases Institutional Reform Proposal

DACA RELEASES INSTITUTIONAL REFORM PROPOSAL
[SOURCE: Progress and Freedom Foundation press release]
The Digital Age Communications Act (DACA) Project released the initial Report from the Working Group on Institutional Reform. The report proposes a "split agency" structure under which adjudications and enforcement activities, envisioned to be the predominant forms of regulatory activity under DACA, will be performed by a multimember commission like the current FCC, while the rulemaking function, considerably circumscribed under DACA, would be carried out by a single administrator located within the Executive Branch. The draft report from the Institutional Reform Working Group marks the last in the series of initial reports to come out of the project. In the report, the Working Group analyzed the historical development of independent agencies, which came about during the Progressive and New Deal eras in response to substantial industrialization affecting the economy. The theoretical hallmarks of the independent agencies like the FCC were supposed to be an abiding faith in specialized expertise to manage industry and freedom from political interference. However, "experience with the actual commissions has sufficiently undermined these original ideals," the report explains. Instead, "government administrators and regulators are now more humble in estimating their own abilities and less skeptical of market mechanisms." More frequent calls for increased political accountability for the policymaking functions exercised by regulatory commissions are cited as reasons for institutional reform.
http://www.pff.org/news/news/2006/111406dacainstitutionalreformnov14even...