Subject: [NEXTEL-1] "Fly-Out-Fridays" - FCC Managers Still Flying Free

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 07 Apr 2004 13:37:33 -0400

FCC Managers Still Flying Free
By Center for Public Integrity Staff

WASHINGTON, April 6, 2004 — Since Federal Communications Commission
Chairman Michael Powell promised seven months ago to "substantially
reduce" travel funded by outside sources, the agency has accepted
$90,000-worth of free trips, according to an analysis by the Center for
Public Integrity.

FCC spokesman David Fiske told the Center in February there would be no
more industry-funded travel by commissioners and "decision makers" at a
"high level."

While travel by the highest-level FCC employees has all but ceased,
records obtained through a Freedom of Information request show there
have been plenty of industry-funded trips taken by upper-level
managers.  For example, the 2004 International Consumer Electronics Show
in Las Vegas this past January was attended by five FCC employees,
including three deputy chiefs and the chief of the Policy and Rules
Division in the Office of Engineering and Technology.

The trips totaled $6,355 and were funded by the Consumer Electronics
Association, an industry trade group. But that was a dramatic decrease
compared with the previous year when 27 FCC workers, including Powell
and commissioners Kathleen Abernathy and Jonathan Adelstein, attended.
Total cost to the association was $45,736.In May 2003, the Center
released a report chronicling how FCC officials had accepted nearly $2.8
million in travel and entertainment expenses over the past eight years,
most of it from the telecommunications and broadcast industries the
agency regulates.

Following the report's release, several unsuccessful attempts have been
made in Congress to ban the practice.

On July 25, 2003, Virginia Republican Congressman Frank Wolf, chairman
of the House appropriations subcommittee that oversees the FCC's budget,
wrote Powell asking his agency to stop accepting such travel.On Aug. 18,
2003, Powell wrote Wolf back, promising to request a $500,000 funding
increase to cover necessary travel. "Even while this effort is underway,
I have commenced a further review of our travel program to substantially
reduce section 1353 [i.e., non-agency-funded] travel and to guarantee
that all travel is necessary to advance the agency's mission." Since
Aug. 18, 2003, the date Powell pledged to reduce such travel, through
Feb. 13, 2004, FCC employees have accepted 65 trips for a dollar value
of $89,843.58.

On March 31, Powell presented the FCC's fiscal 2005 budget to Wolf's
subcommittee and asked for a travel budget increase of $21,000—far short
of what he said he would seek in his earlier letter. (Last February,
Wolf told the Center Powell told him he had agreed to end the practice.)

Fiske told the Center the agency internally shifted $321,000 to the
travel budget of the five commissioners. The change is making it
possible for the commissioners to pay their own way to the National
Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas later this month.
Last year, they flew on the powerful broadcast lobbying group's dime.
Only two commissioners took non-FCC-funded trips since Powell's letter
to Wolf.  Commissioner Michael J. Copps and a top aide traveled to
Nigeria and South Africa on a trip sponsored by Washington State
University and the University of Maryland and funded by the United
States Agency for International Development. Commissioner Kevin J.
Martin and an aide flew to Boston for a fall conference of the National
Telecommunications Cooperative Association.  Martin's office said the
new policy on industry funded travel did not go into effect until the
new fiscal year, which started Oct. 1, 2003. Martin's trip took place
Sept. 22 to 24, 2003.
The most frequent traveler during the period was Roy J. Stewart, Chief,
Office of Broadcast License Policy in the Media Bureau.  He went on six
trips worth $4,745, paid for by the National Association of Broadcasters
and by five state-level broadcasters' associations.

Some other high-level travelers included Powell's senior legal adviser
who went to the "CoBank 2003 Executive Forum" in Beaver Creek, CO on
Aug. 25. CoBank is a large lending institution.

Powell told the subcommittee on March 31 that travel is now restricted
to "a handful" of "mid- or lower-level staff." In his budget request, he
wrote "I currently do not accept Section 1353 travel from regulated
entities and I have directed bureau and office chiefs and members of my
personal staff to follow the same policy."

Wolf, while pleased that the agency had changed its travel policy, told
Powell at the subcommittee hearing that he would prefer to see the trips
cease altogether except when they are funded by charitable
organizations.  "I think our goal should be to get down to zero, with
the exception being again on a charitable institution," he said. "And
maybe the committee and your staff, we can work together to see if we
can do that."

No mention was made of Powell's earlier intention to ask for a $500,000
increase in travel funds.

http://www.publicintegrity.org/telecom/report.aspx?aid=249&sid=200

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