The core of Chairman Kennard's vision for the new Enforcement Bureau is a new enforcement ethic, a fundamental change in the way we do enforcement at the FCC. The basic idea is to have a strong, credible and professional enforcement arm at the FCC. I want to share with you this afternoon how our experience -- nearly one year after the Commission created the Enforcement Bureau -- bears out this vision, and how we're doing things differently.

During the planning period for the Enforcement Bureau, one of the people I consulted with was Scott Harris, who started the FCC's International Bureau. Those of you who know Scott won't be surprised to hear that he had a lot of good suggestions, or that he expected me to follow every one of them. One of his suggestions was the importance of symbols showing that a new Bureau is a new enterprise ready and willing to take chances. Scott told me he showed up at his first meeting with the staff of the new International Bureau wearing bright red socks to show that he dared to be different. He suggested I do the same. Well, I grew up in Boston, so I didn't want to use the Red Sox as an example of success for the new Enforcement Bureau.

But we did take Scott's point to heart and decided we needed a symbol for our first Bureau-wide meeting. Someone suggested we use a baseball bat, but then I started thinking Red Sox again and got all depressed. Besides, that didn't seem very subtle. In the end, we gave out Enforcement Bureau slinkys. And we noted that slinkys were at the same time both firm and flexible. Pretty soon we added fast and had a slogan - firm, fast and flexible. Well, I understand that some people (and particularly my staff, who have to listen to me drone on day after day) have grown pretty sick of my talking about firm, fast and flexible. So I'm not going to use those words today. Nevertheless, I am going to focus my remarks on three guiding principles. First, in this brave new world of competition, we're going to be strong, but we're also going to be fair. Second, we're going to act with speed, but also carefully. And third, we're going to do things differently and use some new and creative approaches to solve problems. Now you might say that being strong, speedy and solving problems creatively isn't that different from the words I just said I wouldn't use again today. Well, so be it, because I really do think these concepts sum up what we're trying to do.

With that as background, I hope to give you some insight on how the bureau works and how you can best serve your interests or your clients' interests in representation before the Enforcement Bureau.

STRONG BUT FAIR

First, Strong but Fair.

When I was in private practice in the early 1980s I remember a client asking me what would happen if he did something I had just told him was unlawful I counseled him to follow the law. But I also told him that as long as he didn't lie about it, probably nothing would happen to him if he violated the Commission's rules. This isn't how things should work.

I think the message is getting out to regulated companies that if you engage in a serious violation of the Communications Act or the FCC's rules, there will now be serious enforcement consequences. The public deserves no less. At the same time, I also hope the message is getting out that you will receive a fair hearing in the Enforcement Bureau.

Strong local competition enforcement is a top priority for the Commission and our Investigations and Hearings Division, led by Chuck Kelley and Raelynn Tibayan Remy.

Earlier this year the Commission entered into a major enforcement consent decree with Bell Atlantic regarding the loss of electronic orders sent by competitive LECs. That agreement required Bell Atlantic to comply with specific performance measurements and included an agreement by Bell Atlantic to make a $3 million payment to the Treasury. As a result of this enforcement action, Bell Atlantic made substantial improvements in provisioning CLEC orders, benefiting competition and consumers in New York. And, we accomplished the whole thing - inquiry letter to consent decree - in just over a month.

Last month we announced a Consent Decree with GTE for $2.7 million regarding GTE's offering of cageless collocation to CLECs. If GTE fails to comply with specific collocation performance measurements within six months, there will be automatic penalties. Again, competition and consumers are the winners.

We've also been tough on universal service enforcement. At a conference several months ago one of the speakers advised carriers that they didn't need to pay all of their universal service contribution because as long as they paid some of it, the FCC wouldn't do anything about it. That advice was flatly wrong. If a carrier doesn't pay the universal service amount that is required under the law, it's going to be subject to strong enforcement action. We recently initiated several forfeiture proceedings in this area and entered into one consent decree. And we warned those carriers that if they don't come into compliance they may find themselves subject to a revocation proceeding.

Consumer protection enforcement is another top enforcement priority for the Commission and our Telecommunications Consumers Division. Our Field Offices have been a great help in this area as well.

Under the leadership of Cathy Seidel, Colleen Heitkamp and Kurt Schroeder, we've given additional meaning to the Chairman's zero tolerance policy for slammers. Slamming enforcement has been stepped up considerably. Since the beginning of the year, we've taken significant slamming enforcement actions involving eight carriers totaling over $12 million. More importantly, major carriers have agreed to significantly alter their business practices to reduce slamming and they're starting to work more cooperatively with us to solve the problem. Consumers are the winners. We've also been taking strong action on other consumer protection issues - for example, junk faxes and misleading long distance advertising.

The bottom line is that we simply aren't going to tolerate flagrant violations of the Communications Act and our rules and orders.

Let me talk a bit about fairness. Those of you who know me from my 12 years in the General Counsel's office know that I have a passion for being fair and careful. While getting results is important to me, I can guarantee you that regulated companies are going to get a fair hearing before the Enforcement Bureau. I am personally committed to this. We're going to consider all the facts and the law carefully.

Let me give some advice in this area about how you and your clients can help ensure fair treatment. The key is to be up front with us. Bring problems to our attention rather than wait until we catch you. We know problems happen. If you promptly bring them to our attention yourself, work quickly to fix them and help us understand the reasons, that is going to work to your benefit.

Whether it's self-reporting or responding to an Enforcement Bureau investigation, another key piece of advice is to tell us what's going on clearly, succinctly and professionally. We may not always agree, but we always listen and pay close attention to what you say. If you haven't done anything wrong, or there's a good reason for what happened, we want to know and know right up front. We don't want to waste our time. We don't want to consider or take enforcement action where none is warranted. If you make a persuasive argument, we'll respond accordingly. But if we can't understand what you're saying, or find that you're avoiding our questions, misstating the facts or making frivolous legal arguments, well, let me just say that doesn't help your case. And even if we find a violation, if you've been up front with us and worked with us, you're going to be better off in both the short and long run.

Finally on the issue of strong enforcement, while it's not the subject of this conference, let me mention that we've also being taking tough action on a host of spectrum and technical enforcement issues. For example, we've shut down over 130 pirate radio stations since January.

SPEEDY BUT CAREFUL

A second key principle is that we need to act with speed, but be careful. Like Tom Cruise said in the movie Top Gun, ``I feel the need, the need for speed!''

Speed matters. Parties are entitled to quick and clear answers. Acting promptly is increasingly important as competition and the pace of change in the industry intensifies. We are addressing this in a number of ways.

As you heard from Alex Starr this morning, in the Market Disputes Resolution Division, we have been placing increased emphasis on mediation of formal complaints. We try to facilitate settlements between the parties because we understand that business solutions arrived at by the parties without litigation are more efficient, and save time and resources for everybody involved, including the Commission. We're doing this both in the context of the Accelerated Docket and with other formal complaints. This not only gets quick and satisfactory results for the parties involved, but it also frees up more time and resources for us to act on those disputes that can't be settled. Just to give you an idea of how well the mediation process is working, a couple of weeks ago the folks in the Market Disputes Resolution Division reported the successful settlement of 10 disputes in one week.

If you're contemplating filing a formal complaint, we strongly encourage you to contact the staff in the Market Disputes Resolution Division before filing it. In many cases, the staff can discuss the dispute with the parties involved and help facilitate a private settlement acceptable to both parties even before the filing of a complaint.

The attorneys in Market Disputes also have been engaged in aggressive case management. As soon as a case comes in the door, the staff attorney assigned to the case devises a plan for how the case will be managed with specific timetables. New cases don't just go to the bottom of a stack.

The Market Disputes group has also been working hard to reduce the formal common carrier complaints backlog. When the Bureau began last November there were about 150 pending cases. Since then, another 80 or so cases have been filed. Yet we are now down to roughly 60 pending formal common carrier complaints. While we still have a few more old cases to resolve, the bottom line is that we've gotten to the point that when a new case is filed, we can now pretty much guarantee the parties that we're going to move on it promptly. This helps the parties get real time answers, helps competition and helps consumers.

The Accelerated Docket is another creative approach to problem solving that can get your client answers to their problems quickly. One of the best kept secrets in town is that, through the Accelerated Docket process, dozens of problems are resolved without a complaint ever being filed, simply by having Enforcement Bureau staff mediate the dispute with the parties. I consistently hear from parties on both sides of the table how fair, professional and effective Frank Lamancusa and his Accelerated Docket team are.

So we are doing things differently by acting with speed. But just as we balance being strong with being fair, our interest in speed never overtakes the need to be careful. Enforcement decisions can have important and far-reaching implications. I can assure you that we don't move forward until we have a command of the facts and the law. And, where significant policy matters are at issue, we coordinate closely with the Common Carrier Bureau and other relevant Bureaus. We are careful to ensure that speed doesn't mean a rush to judgment.

NEW AND CREATIVE WAYS TO SOLVE PROBLEMS

Doing things differently also means trying new and creative ways to improve enforcement at the FCC. As I mentioned before, we've put much more emphasis on mediation of disputes. We also don't just sit back and wait for parties to file complaints. We have become more proactive, particularly in the areas of local competition and consumer protection, by making greater use of our investigative power under the Communications Act.

Our staff is available to listen to anyone who has credible evidence that a carrier has violated the Act or our rules. When you contact us, it is very helpful if you state clearly what statutory provisions or rules you think have been violated. Documentary evidence, including affidavits, is extremely useful. This kind of information can help speed up our response time.

Let me be clear about what a letter of inquiry is, and, equally important, what it is not. It is an information-gathering tool for the staff; it helps us decide whether enforcement action is warranted. It should be an indication to the target that we have credible information that further inquiry is warranted into whether there has been a violation, not that we have decided that there has been a violation. A letter of inquiry is NOT an indictment.

We read the target's written response to our letter of inquiry carefully. If there's a persuasive showing that no violation has occurred -- end of story. Thus far, we have declined to take enforcement action on several occasions, based on responses to letters of inquiry.

However, if the response leads us to believe that a violation has occurred, we may decide to take enforcement action through a NAL or consent decree.

I'd like to offer a few words of advice about this process for those of you who may receive a letter of inquiry. Take the letter and your response seriously. Be sure to give complete and accurate information with your response. Incomplete or evasive answers simply delay the process, waste time and resources, and often lead to additional letters of inquiry and more responses. If you give your best, complete answer right away, we can better make the determination whether to go forward or terminate. And, for reasons mentioned above, it's ultimately better for you if you're clear and straight with us.

We had an example recently where the first response to our letter of inquiry was not complete. Our questions weren't directly answered, although there was plenty of rhetoric. A series of additional correspondence ensued over months. Finally, we got the information we requested, and that convinced us not to initiate enforcement action, but a lot of time and effort were needlessly expended by the target and the Commission. If we had gotten the information in the first response, we could have terminated the matter a lot more quickly.

Some of these informal investigations result in consent decrees. Not all cases are suitable for consent decrees, but we have been using consent decrees more and I expect us to continue doing so.

Consent decrees are particularly useful when a party is willing to recognize that there are problems and make commitments to changes in future behavior that would benefit consumers. I've mentioned some examples already. Another good example is the Consent Decree with MCI WorldCom on its dial-around advertising practices. MCI WorldCom agreed to review all of its dial-around ads and retract those that may not have been as clear as they should have been.

Plus, consent decrees can be quick. This is good for the target, for the FCC, and, most importantly, for consumers. Consent decrees avoid delay and the expense of litigation. The company cleans up its act and makes a payment, the public gets results and everybody moves on.

One piece of advice if you're negotiating a consent decree with us. In addition to voluntary payments, most of the consent decrees we negotiate include significant compliance plans. A credible, comprehensive compliance plan for the future will be viewed favorably and may serve as a mitigating factor for enforcement action.

When pursuing enforcement matters, we've also been increasing our coordination with state agencies, the Federal Trade Commission and, in some instances, the Department of Justice. Such close cooperation has worked to the mutual benefit of all the agencies involved.

I want to make two final points about doing things differently. The first relates to our written decisions. We've put a lot of effort into making our decisions clear, direct and short. We think the parties and the public are entitled to read our decisions and know right away what we're doing and why. You can help by sending us pleadings that are clear and to the point.

Second, I want to say a word about our staff. Another piece of good advice I got at the planning stage came from Phil Verveer, a former FCC bureau chief. He suggested I hire the best people I can find, including people with different backgrounds and skill sets, and then sign everything they put in front of me. Well, as those of you who work with me or know me are aware, I'm not the kind of person to sign everything that's put in front of me. But I do feel extremely lucky to have an excellent group of people working with me who do in fact make it easy to sign most things they put in front of me. We've got a great mix of regulatory and litigation experience that I think has made the FCC's enforcement program much more effective than in the past.

CONCLUSION

So that's how we've been doing things differently in the Enforcement Bureau since it was created almost a year ago. We're going to be strong, but fair. We're going to act with speed, but act carefully. And we're going to work hard to solve problems in new and creative ways.

We live in a new competitive world, and that means we've got to approach enforcement from a new and fresh perspective. One approach doesn't fit all and today's approach may not work tomorrow. So we look forward to continuing to get reactions and suggestions from those of you in the audience and others so that, as envisioned by Chairman Kennard and the Commission, enforcement can be successful in promoting competition to the overall benefit of consumers.

Thank you.