NEWS RELEASE
Committee on Energy and Commerce Democrats
Congressman John D. Dingell, Ranking Member

The following is a statement by Congressman John D. Dingell, Ranking Member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, in response to the FCC decision today:

"With today’s decision, the FCC’s regulatory arrogance has delivered a body blow to democracy. The weakening of the FCC media ownership rules will hurt localism, will reduce diversity, and will allow media monopolies to flourish. Moreover, the FCC avoided open debate, ignored decades of judicial precedent and arbitrarily rejected the views of hundreds of thousands of concerned citizens.

"For years, the federal courts have upheld the government’s ability to regulate media ownership levels in order to protect localism, preserve diversity, and ensure competition in the media marketplace. Today’s decision ignores settled law and sacrifices those important democratic values on the ideological altar of deregulation.

"Further, of the hundreds of thousands of comments received by the FCC during the course of this proceeding, only a small handful, submitted by those companies with a significant financial stake in the outcome, supported weakening the rules. Unfortunately, three FCC commissioners only saw fit to listen to that small handful and blithely ignored the rest of us.

"The battle for a reasoned approach to ownership will now return to the courts, which hopefully will reject this arbitrary action, and to the Congress where a bipartisan coalition has already formed and is prepared to move forward. I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to enact a national policy that will restore diversity and competition to the media marketplace."

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