070712 NN Reply Comment-edit

Regulatory Studies Program Public Interest Reply Comment on 1Broadband Industry PracticesJuly 16, 2007 WC Docket No. 07-52; FCC No. 07-31 The Regulatory Studies Program (RSP) of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University is dedicated to advancing knowledge of the impact of regulation on society. As part of its mission, RSP conducts careful and independent analyses employing contemporary economic scholarship to assess rulemaking proposals from the perspective of the public interest. Thus, this reply comment on the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC’s) Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on broadband industry practices does not represent the views of any particular affected party or special interest group, but is designed to evaluate the effect of the Commission’s proposals on overall consumer welfare. I. INTRODUCTION In our initial comment, we suggested that the FCC should employ the same framework for regulatory analysis used by most other federal agencies to evaluate market 2performance and the pros and cons of prospective regulation. The framework consists of six principal steps, reproduced below. 1 Prepared by Jerry Brito, senior research fellow, and Jerry Ellig, senior research fellow, Mercatus Center at George Mason University. This comment is one in a series of Public Interest Comments from Mercatus Center’s Regulatory Studies Program and does not represent an official ...