FCC Chair Warns Of Budget Cut Woes

Mignon Clyburn

Acting FCC chairwoman Mignon Clyburn told a Senate appropriations subcommittee Wednesday that if the country wants to remain a world leader in communications, it should not compromise the FCC funding that supports the FCC's mission.

Accord to multichannel.com, Clyburn suggested that budget cuts could lead to a cascade of negative outcomes that will continue to slow the FCC's ability to process thousdand of applications for new and innovative services, which could affect spectrum development and auctions.

She pointed out that the FCC is already doing less thanks to the sequester and was operating on $322 million in 2013, when it had asked for $346.7 million.

The Republican-controlled House is looking at giving the FCC only $320 million for 2014, Subcommittee chairman Tom Udall (D-N.M.) pointed out, and asked how that would affect the commission, which would like closer to $360 million.

Clyburn said the FCC had already been forced to "cut corners" to continue to meet "mission critical" objectives.

She said that corner-cutting does not come without programmatic costs. Those include not replacing failing equipment, turning off the air conditioning system at 6 p.m. during the heat of the summer, routine shortages in supplies, cancelation of contracts, bare bones travel budgets.

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