As the newly appointed FCC chairman, charged with regulating the nation's entire telecommunications industry (radio, television, telephone, wireless and satellite), Powell has reached unusual heights for a man not yet 40 years old. ("What is he, 38? God, that's depressing," sighs one envious broadcast lobbyist.) His swift ascent is all the more amazing considering Powell joined the public sector just five years ago.

After his exit from the Army in 1988, Powell attended Georgetown University's law school. There he befriended William Coleman, a transportation secretary during the Ford administration. Coleman introduced Powell to Harry Edwards, the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, for whom he clerked. Powell then joined O'Melveny & Myers, Warren Christopher's international law firm, for which Powell lobbied the government on behalf of Conoco Oil.

In December 1996 Powell joined the government payroll as chief of staff for Assistant Attorney General Joel Klein. Less than two months after Powell joined the DOJ, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., an old family friend, recommended Powell to fill a Republican vacancy and become one of the FCC's five commissioners. (Actually, there was no vacancy per se; McCain, in an unusual move, simply urged that a sitting Republican commissioner not be reappointed for another term in order to make room for Powell.) In November 1997, Powell officially became a commissioner.

Less than four years later, President Bush appointed Powell to the position of FCC chairman, a move that fit in nicely with the administration's early emphasis on appointing women and minorities to high positions.

To recap, here is the list of friends in high places who reached out in succession to help Powell over the last few years: former Transportation Secretary Coleman, Judge Edwards, former Secretary of State Christopher, Assistant Attorney General Klein, Sen. McCain and President Bush.

Now Powell is king of the Hill. "He has an extraordinary amount of bipartisan respect and goodwill on Capitol Hill," says Scott Cleland, chief executive at the Precursor Group, a Washington financial research firm. "He has an extraordinary command of the material and he understands the issues. He starts with more political goodwill and political capital than any Washington leader."

Says Hundt: "Powell's job is as risk-free as any public service job could be right now."

Borrowing a bit of Dick Cheney-speak, Cleland agrees: "Powell's big-time popular in Washington."

The question is: How long will his popularity last? Not everyone in Washington is enamored of Powell's deregulatory tendencies. Powell's response to Stearns' query about media consolidation last spring particularly stuck in the craw of Sen. Fritz Hollings, D-S.C., the crusty party elder who first took a seat on the Senate Commerce Committee when Powell was just 4 years old and running around at his parents' knees on one of the 20-odd Army bases he grew up on as a kid.

The surprising party switch this spring of Jim Jeffords, I-Vt., suddenly gave Hollings -- the newly installed chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee -- a forum to express his dismay at Powell's comments. The senator called for a July hearing to specifically address media consolidation and the question of TV ownership caps and newspaper cross-ownership. (Without the caps, media giants like NBC, ABC, the Tribune Co., the New York Times and Viacom could cash in by drastically expanding their holdings, making it possible, for instance, for NBC to buy the Gannett newspaper chain if it wanted.)

Powell's notion of "validate or eliminate" the ownership rules irked Hollings. "That, my friends, is not the law," scowled the senator. "And that is why we are having this hearing today -- to set the record straight." Hollings pointed out that according to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the burden of proof was on those who wanted to relax the existing ownership rules, not, as Powell suggested, the other way around.

That philosophical difference is at the heart of the consolidation debate. Deregulators such as Powell insist that the ownership caps unfairly confine businesses, and that unless the limits can be justified they ought to be abolished. Cap proponents like Hollings, a fierce defender of competition through media diversity who enjoys striking a populist stance against the "insatiable" demands of the media industry, insist that government plays a key role in protecting the public trust and that deregulation is not a cure-all.

Hollings also corrected Powell's factual error from his earlier testimony that the TV ownership caps were lifted from 25 percent to 35 percent in the 1970s, noting that they were actually put in place in 1996.

Just barely, though. For all the inevitability that appears to surround the prospect of relaxing the caps beyond 35 percent today, just five years ago Congress had second thoughts about even going beyond the old 25 percent limitation. During a Senate vote on the Telecom Act in 1995, Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., offered an amendment to keep the TV caps at 25. To the surprise of nearly everyone present, it passed by three votes. One Republican senator then changed his mind, thereby allowing for a revote that night. During dinner, "several senators had some sort of epiphany," according to Dorgan. The amendment was then narrowly defeated and the TV caps were raised to 35 percent.

Concerned that TV will follow the runaway consolidation that radio underwent when the Telecom Act eliminated virtually all meaningful ownership restrictions, Hollings topped off the hearing by introducing legislation that would handcuff the FCC. His bill would require the commission to report to Congress any attempts to loosen media ownership rules; the rules would go into effect only after Congress had 18 months to review them. Hollings has strong support from smaller TV broadcast companies that fear being swallowed up by the giants if caps are lifted.

It was a classic shot across the bow. Or in D.C.-speak, a push-back. Hollings had put Powell on notice; not only was his honeymoon in jeopardy, but if the well-liked chairman thought ushering in more media consolidation on behalf of big business was going to be a cinch, he had better think again.

"I think what has been revealed is an inconsistency in the chairman's philosophy," says Gene Kimmelman, co-director of the Consumers Union.

"He claims he's just following Congress' initiative," says Kimmelman, who testified at the Senate hearing against any further media consolidation. "But the senator pointed out that chairman Powell quite obviously has a strong predisposition towards deregulation and has shown a certain disregard for legislative directives from Congress. Perhaps he needs to go back to the drawing board and clarify his approach." (Powell was not available to be interviewed for this article.)

Just a few days after the Senate hearing, Powell did just that -- he made his priorities perfectly clear. Voting along party lines, commissioners granted a waiver allowing Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. to purchase 10 Chris-Craft Industries television stations for $4.4 billion -- making Murdoch's Fox television group the most powerful in the nation. The waiver was needed because the purchase violated three separate ownership and cross-ownership laws. (Conspiracy theorists will note it was Fox News, with the help of a Bush cousin in the control room, that first called the disputed election for the Republican candidate during the early hours of Nov. 8. If Al Gore had won the election, Powell would not be the FCC chairman today.)

Whether he likes it or not, the issue of media consolidation, and the accompanying political fireworks, will likely define Powell's first term as chairman.

"It's the most partisan issue the FCC faces," says Cleland, "and it's the one that will most challenge the chairmanship's acumen."

Indeed, Powell had hoped the commission would start the review process on newspaper cross-ownership in May by taking the first step of posting what the FCC calls a notice of proposed rule making. (A proposed rule is made, comments are filed by all interested parties and then the commissioners vote; the process can drag on for more than a year.) But the FCC commissioners couldn't even agree on the wording for the rule making and the initiative was scrapped temporarily. Democratic commissioner Gloria Tristani, said by FCC sources to be eyeing an upcoming run against Republican Sen. Pete Domenici back in her home state of New Mexico, was adamant about not approving any proposal that even considered eliminating the ban on newspaper cross-ownership. But with three new commissioners now on board, Powell should have the votes to finally get the process moving.

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