Tom Wheeler Mum On Stepping Down Post-Obama

Tom Wheeler

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler says it is still too early to make a firm commitment to step down at the end of President Obama's term, according to The Hill.

During a C-SPAN interview recorded Thursday, the chairman was asked multiple times whether he would step down and why he had so far declined to make a firm commitment. He brushed off a question on whether he fears the commitment would make him a "lame duck."

"I just think it's early," he said during a taping of "The Communicators" series. "We're 10 months away from a new inauguration. Okay. We'll deal with things as we get closer to that."

Wheeler said the FCC still has a number of unfinished items for the year, from the spectrum incentive auction to new Internet privacy rules and a cable set-top box proposal.


The issue of the chairman's tenure came into the spotlight during testimony at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing last month. It was the first question he was asked by senators at the hearing, and he has been pressed a number of times since then.

Decades of tradition dictate that the chairman of the independent agency steps down when a member of the opposite party is elected or when asked under a new president.