FCC cracks down on staff’s ability to edit rules after passage

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai is cracking down on staffers’ ability to edit rules after they have been passed by the agency.

{mosads}In a statement Thursday, Pai said FCC staffers will only be allowed to make “technical and conforming edits” to agency rules after they have been voted on at monthly meetings, and said only commissioners will have the authority to make more substantive changes.

Pai credited the other Republican on the panel, Michael O’Rielly, for suggesting the change. 

“Two years ago, Commissioner O’Rielly began raising concerns about the process of granting editorial privileges,” Pai said in the statement. “Specifically, he has suggested that such privileges currently are too broad, insofar as they extend to substantive edits. Filling in a citation in a document is one thing; changing the meaning of that document is another.”

“I believe that Commissioner O’Rielly’s view has merit. Accordingly, we are going to make changes to the process.”

Pai has announced a series of process reforms in the past week that he believes will improve the FCC’s transparency.

But he has also drawn criticism for rolling back a number of moves pushed through under the last administration, including an investigation into zero-rating programs.