Senate 1 Step Closer to Blocking FCC Decision on Newspaper Broadcast Cross Ownership

The Senate Commerce Committee will take up a Federal Communications Commission-blocking bill this month.

The committee said Thursday that it would take up the resolution April 24. It had planned to do so April 2 but postponed it.

The "resolution of disapproval" -- an unusual congressional step that invalidates a decision by a regulatory agency like the FCC -- was introduced by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) after the commission voted Dec. 18 to loosen the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rules.

FCC chairman Kevin Martin billed it as a compromise with consolidation opponents -- like Dorgan -- since it did not lift the ban entirely and was less deregulatory than a 2003 FCC effort to change the rules.

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