Separate Statement of Commissioner Harold W. Furchtgott-Roth
                                    
     Computer III Further Remand Proceedings: Bell Operating Company
                     Provision of Enhanced Services
                                   and
    1998 Biennial Regulatory Review -- Review of Computer III and ONA
                       Safeguards and Requirements

                  Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
                                    
                                    
    I support adoption of this Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.  I
question, however, whether the FCC is prepared to meet its statutory obligation
to review all of its regulations in 1998.
    
    Contrary to the captioning of this Further NPRM (and at least one other
item that the staff has presented to the Commission for decision), we may be
neglecting the express directives of a terse but important provision of the
Telecommunications Act of 1996.  In this provision, codified as Section 11 of
the Communications Act, Congress directed the FCC to conduct, beginning in
1998, a biennial review of "all regulations issued under [the Act] in effect at
the time of the review that apply to the operations or activities of any provider
of telecommunications service" and determine whether any of these regulations
are "no longer necessary in the public interest as the result of meaningful
economic competition between providers of such service."  47 U.S.C. Section
161 (emphasis added).  Section 11 also requires that the FCC "repeal or modify
any regulation it determines to be no longer necessary in the public interest. 

    Clearly, Section 11 has two components: a policy against unnecessary
regulations and a procedure to find and remove all such regulations every two
years.  In this Further NPRM, the Commission fully addresses only the policy
component of Section 11.

    Although the Commission thus appears to have fulfilled its duty to
implement the policy of Section 11 in the context of this particular proceeding,
I am concerned that -- because of this item's caption and the many references to
Section 11 throughout the text -- we may be leaving the misimpression that we
also are addressing the procedural requirements of Section 11.  To my
knowledge, the FCC has no plans to review affirmatively all regulations that
apply to the operations or activities of any provider of telecommunications
service and to make specific findings as to their continued necessity in light of
current market conditions.  Indeed, the comprehensive and systematic review of
all FCC regulations required under Section 11 certainly would take many
months to complete, yet we have not published a specific schedule to ensure
completion of this task in 1998.

    Nor has the Commission issued general principles to guide our  public
interest  analysis and decision making process across the wide range of FCC
regulations.  I believe that, in addition to the direction given us within the law,
the public interest determinations we eventually make pursuant to Section 11
should be made based on a straightforward analysis:  regulations are in the
public interest only if their benefits significantly outweigh their costs.  We have
not yet adopted any such guidance.

    It is unfortunate that this public discussion of our responsibilities under
Section 11 has first surfaced in the context of a seemingly unrelated action in
the decade-old Computer III proceedings.  In my view, however, we should not
let this or any other such limited Commission analysis and decision making (or
even the sum of such limited actions) be mistaken for complete compliance with
Section 11 as envisioned by Congress.


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