Those of you who have been monitoring the gestation of the Commission’s revised rural radio policies will be pleased to know that those policies have taken what could be their penultimate step toward formal effectiveness. You may recall that, back in March, the FCC invited comments (as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act) on the certification requirements newly-imposed by the revised policies. The deadline for those comments (which were to be filed with the Commission) was May 23. With that deadline having come and gone, the Commission is wasting no time: according to a public notice in the Federal Register, the FCC has now bundled the whole shebang up and shipped it over to the Office of Management and Budget for its look-see. If and when OMB gives the new certification requirements the thumbs up, the Commission will be able to put them into effect.
This is your last chance to toss in your two cents’ worth on the new requirements. This time, though, you’ll have to direct your comments to the OMB. The deadline is June 27, 2011 – which means that we can probably expect the new certification requirements to kick in for real sometime in July or August. The Commission will presumably issue a notice to let us know when that happens.
