Home > posts > Proposed New Jersey Telecom Legislation Would Increase Bureaucracy and Regulation, Not Reduce It
November 21st, 2011 6:04 pm
Proposed New Jersey Telecom Legislation Would Increase Bureaucracy and Regulation, Not Reduce It
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Under the false banner of “deregulation,” New Jersey state Senator Bob Smith (D) today introduced telecommunications legislation that would actually increase unnecessary and job-killing regulation over an industry critical to economic growth and jobs.

Smith claims that S-3062 relieves regulatory burdens, but it would in fact broaden regulatory authority for the Board of Public Utilities while heaping even more bureaucratic mandates and obligations upon telecom companies.  Among other things, the law would reinstate Board power over competitive services, even though such oversight was removed by the state legislature years ago.  The proposed bill would also mandate tariffs for services classified as competitive, while discriminatorily imposing filing requirements on some businesses but not others.  Moreover, the legislation would complicate and add uncertainty within the patchwork of overlapping federal and state regulations, and expand Board power in the video realm.

The fact that Sen. Smith attempted to characterize new regulatory proposals  as deregulatory shows that even he knows our current economic environment is not one in which the public desires even  more government interference.  Unfortunately, that’s what his bill would do.  What struggling New Jersey citizens need are more jobs and more telecom competition, not more bureaucracy.

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