Powell to quit as FCC chairman

Michael K. Powell said yesterday he will resign as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission in March, ending a stormy four-year tenure marked by battles over indecency on the airwaves and the rules that keep media conglomerates from growing larger.

In an interview with The Washington Times, Mr. Powell, 41, said he was uncomfortable waging the war on indecency, a furor that erupted after singer Janet Jackson’s performance at last year’s Super Bowl and made Mr. Powell a target of radio shock jock Howard Stern.

Regulating the content of television and radio programming clashed with his belief in free speech, he said, although his job required him to uphold the FCC’s rules against airing material the government deems indecent.

“It’s not the most comfortable work. … When you taken an oath of office, you have to uphold all of the laws of the United States,” Mr. Powell said.

The battle over indecency was not necessarily a distraction, he said, but it overshadowed what he considers two of the biggest accomplishments of his tenure: a national “do-not-call” registry that helps consumers avoid calls from telemarketers, and a plan that allows cell phone users to keep their phone number when switching carriers.

Mr. Powell declined to discuss his plans, although he is believed to be interested in the presidency of his alma mater, the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va., a job that will open when the current president, Timothy J. Sullivan, retires June 30.

Mr. Powell, a Fairfax Station resident, is a member of the school’s Board of Visitors. The moderate Republican also has been mentioned as a potential candidate for governor or senator in Virginia or for a federal judgeship.

“I really want to work until my very last day here, so it’s really not appropriate for me to be job searching,” he said.

Mr. Powell is one of three Republicans on the five-member FCC. The other two are Kathleen Q. Abernathy, 48, formerly a cell phone industry lobbyist, and Kevin J. Martin, 38, who worked as a lawyer on Mr. Bush’s 2000 campaign and the Florida vote recount.

Both are considered candidates to succeed Mr. Powell. Other potential candidates include Rebecca Klein, formerly the head of the Texas Public Utility Commission, and Michael Gallagher, assistant commerce secretary for communications and information.

“[Mr. Powell has] been the most deregulatory-minded chairman we’ve seen in recent memory. It’s unlikely whoever will replace him will be anywhere near as deregulatory,” Scott Cleland, chief executive officer of media research group Precursor, told Bloomberg News.

Mr. Powell said his goal was to create policies that would accommodate emerging technologies, but critics said that resulted in regulations that were far too lax.

In November, the FCC barred state regulators from taxing digital phone calls made over the Internet, ruling that relaxed oversight is needed for the technology to flourish.

Mr. Powell also pushed a plan through the FCC that allowed Reston cell phone carrier Nextel Communications Inc. to swap some airwaves to cut interference on police radios, and he fought to relax restrictions on high-speed Internet connections belonging to cable companies such as Comcast Corp. and phone carriers such as Verizon Communications Inc.

“Powell turned the FCC into more of an intellectual chamber of commerce than an agency whose duty is to watch the giants under its mandate,” said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a media watchdog group.

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