The Regulatory Mix, TMI’s daily blog of regulatory activities, is a snapshot of PUC, FCC, legislative, and occasionally court, issues that our regulatory monitoring team uncovers each day. Depending on their significance, some items may be the subject of a TMI Regulatory Bulletin.
TELECOM
FCC
CenturyLink forbearance
The FCC announced that CenturyLink’s Petition for Forbearance from dominant carrier regulation and the Computer Inquiry tariffing requirement for its packet-switched and optical transmission services (enterprise broadband services) that are still subject to regulation was granted by operation of law effective March 13, 2015. (Under Section 10 of the Communications Act, a forbearance petition is deemed granted if the FCC does not act on it within one year of receipt unless the one year period is extended by the FCC. In this case the FCC did extend the period for the permitted 90 days but the petition was nevertheless issued by operation of law and without written FCC order.)
Consumer Advisory Committee
The FCC is seeking additional applications for membership on its Consumer Advisory Committee. Applications must be received by April 1, 2015. The Committee makes recommendations to the FCC regarding consumer issues within the jurisdiction of the FCC and facilitates the participation of consumers in FCC proceedings. The FCC is particularly interested in receiving nominations and expressions of interest from individuals and organizations in the following categories:
- Organizations and other entities representing consumers;
- Communications service providers and organizations representing communications service providers, including wireline and wireless communications service providers, broadcast radio and television licensees, cable television operators and other multichannel video programming distributors, satellite communications service providers, interconnected VoIP and other IP-enabled service providers, and Internet Service Providers;
- State and/or local government agencies and organizations;
- Federal government agencies;
Members must be willing to commit to a two-year term of service, should be willing and able to attend three one-day meetings per year in Washington, D.C., and are also expected to participate in deliberations of at least one working group or subcommittee. The FCC’s Public Notice describes the application procedures and includes an online application form (the preferred application method).
ENERGY
West Virginia
West Virginia Governor Earl Ray Tomblin has signed legislation (HB 2201) requiring the PSC to adopt certain Net Metering and interconnection rules and standards. In his statement, released 3/12/15 Governor Tomblin said, “Today I signed House Bill 2201, which regulates net metering as part of West Virginia’s power generation. I appreciate the increasing role solar and wind power will play in our state, and I encourage the Public Service Commission to continue to evaluate the costs and benefits of West Virginia’s net metering policy to balance the potential for new jobs and investment in alternative energy without unfairly burdening current rate-payers.”
