Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act--Motion to Proceed--Resumed
Floor Speech
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Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I am pleased to see that Jessica Rosenworcel and Ajit Pai have been confirmed to the Federal Communications Commission. They are both highly qualified, and it is unfortunate that the FCC's stubborn refusal to respond to my very simple request for information forced me to place a hold on their nominations for the past 4 months in order to get the FCC to move on giving me the information to which any Member of Congress ought to be entitled.
The FCC needs to learn a simple lesson from this episode: The public's business ought to be public, and transparency brings accountability. Eventually, the truth will be known, so you might as well get it out there when the questions first come up.
I initially placed my hold on the FCC Commissioner nominees because the FCC had stonewalled a document request that I submitted on April 27 last year regarding their actions related to a company called LightSquared and the hedge fund, Harbinger Capital, that owns LightSquared.
Before I wrote my letter on LightSquared, many concerns had already been raised regarding the company's plans for a terrestrial network and its potential to interfere with the global positioning system, or sometimes that is referred to as GPS. In my first letter, I raised those concerns as well. Unfortunately, the FCC does not appear to have taken those concerns seriously, but months later, independent testing verified the danger LightSquared posed to industries, from commercial aviation to even our own Armed Forces.
It seems strange that a project that was so obviously flawed was allowed to go so far. But LightSquared had help. In total, LightSquared has paid 53 different lobbyists, some registered, some unregistered. They paid one former Governor, three former Senators, nine former Members of Congress, including a former Speaker and former minority leader, and a former White House Counsel to advocate for them. These lobbyists provided entry into the FCC and the White House. But they could not change the fact that LightSquared's network simply could not coexist with GPS.
LightSquared has now declared bankruptcy, and it appears its plan to build a terrestrial network is over, but many questions still remain. Some of those questions: Why did the FCC give LightSquared this unusual waiver in the first place? Why did LightSquared's lawyers mention campaign contributions when they sought meetings at the White House? Why did a four-star general claim he had been pressured by the Obama administration not to criticize LightSquared?
When I first asked the FCC for documents, I was told they would take about 2 years to respond to my request through the Freedom of Information Act. Then they told me they do not voluntarily turn over documents to the 99.6 percent of the Members of Congress who do not chair a committee with direct jurisdiction over FCC. After a lot of back and forth with the FCC, they told me the reason they do not respond to 99.6 percent of Congress is because of just a one-line statement in the Congressional Research Service report. The line reads, ``Oversight is most effective if it is conducted by Congressional committees of jurisdiction.'' Now, the FCC somehow took this quote and conveniently came up with the idea that they do not have to give this Senator any documents. Of course, to anybody in the Congress, this makes no sense whatsoever, but that is what the FCC hid behind. And, of course--you know me--I did not give up. The FCC's response to me is just another variation on what the Justice Department told me when I started asking questions about Operation Fast and Furious.
Fortunately, we have Members of the House of Representatives who are not afraid to ask this administration some tough questions. In Fast and Furious, it was Chairman Issa who held the Justice Department's feet to the fire to make sure they responded fully and responded completely. With LightSquared, it was another committee in the House of Representatives, the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Chairmen WALDEN, UPTON, and STEARNS and their staff have done an excellent job in making sure the FCC is open, transparent, and provides documents to Congress, even when they do not want to give those documents to a Senator who asked for them, meaning this Senator.
I would also like to thank Commerce Committee Chairman Rockefeller here in the Senate for pressing the FCC personally to release documents. With all of this help, we are making sure the FCC is open with the American people about the way they operate because transparency brings accountability.
In over 30 years of conducting oversight, I can say that when it comes to providing documents to the Congress, the FCC is one of the worst Federal agencies I have ever had to deal with. Even after receiving a document request from the Energy and Commerce Committee in the House of Representatives, the FCC still tried to play the tired old games agencies play when they are not acting in good faith.
When they finally turned over their first batch of documents--would you believe it?--those documents were already publicly available on the Internet through the Freedom of Information Act. So they weren't giving us anything we didn't already have access to.
When they didn't convince us they were acting in good faith--because, quite frankly, they weren't--they gave us a second production. But in that production, of the first 1,968 pages they produced, all but 3--in other words, 1,965 pages--were newspaper clippings. Again, the FCC was playing games. And, of course, that is not acceptable.
Fortunately, we have continued to press the FCC, and we now, with the help of the House of Representatives, have approximately 8,000 nonpublic internal documents. Still, we have not received all responsive documents from the FCC yet. We just received another 4,000 pages of documents, and I have been told that approximately 7,000 more documents are on their way to Congress. We now at least have a path forward. That is why I lifted my holds a couple weeks ago, so these nominations could move forward.
I trust the House committee will ensure that the FCC provides those 7,000 or so additional documents. I have always said if you are hiding something, it is best to get it out in the open, because the longer you stonewall--in this case the FCC--the worse you are going to look when those facts finally come out.
The FCC has attempted to stonewall my request for documents for almost a year, and they have failed. But they failed only thanks to the help provided by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and because of that help we are finally able to review internal documents from the FCC--the very same documents we should have gotten when we first asked in our request on April 27 of last year.
As I said when I initially filed my intent to object, I strongly believe it is critical for Congress to have access to documents in order to conduct vigorous and independent oversight. Whether it takes 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, or even 1 year--as it did in this case--I will continue to pursue transparency across the Federal Government because transparency brings accountability. That is essential so that Congress can practice its constitutional role of oversight over the Federal Government.
The role of oversight is this simple: Congress passes laws and appropriates money. That is not the end of it. Our government is a government of checks and balances. We have a responsibility, after passing laws and appropriating money, to make sure the laws are faithfully executed and the money spent according to the intent of Congress. That is oversight.
Even now as we review these documents we have already gotten and begin conducting interviews with key FCC staff, the investigation, obviously, continues. Step one was getting access to the FCC e-mails. We took this step so we could make sure we had the facts before we jumped to conclusions.
Now it is time for step two--asking hard questions of the key FCC personnel who approved the LightSquared waiver. This process may continue to take more time, but however long the process takes, I will continue to press for transparency at the FCC because, again, with transparency comes accountability.
This agency must operate in an open and transparent manner, and we must have answers regarding the LightSquared waiver. The people at the FCC work for the American people, they don't work for themselves.
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