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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 229 / Thursday, December 2, 2021 / Rules and Regulations
29. Clarify Foreign Relationships Do Not Include Customers. As requested by C&B, we clarify that existing or planned relationships/partnerships, and prior relationships/partnerships in the case of broadcast applicants, and funding or service contracts, do not include foreign subscribers to an applicants retail services. We also clarify that, for the purposes of this question, these relationships do not include foreign employees who are identified in other questions, such as Senior Officers and Directors, and Non-U.S. Individuals with physical access to certain facilities, records, networks, or electronic interfaces.26 We decline, however, C&Bs request to limit the question to only relationships with foreign governments or foreign government owned entities, as foreign individuals and entities also may raise national security and law enforcement concerns.
30. Limit the Use of Foreign Party in Attachment E/Broadcast Section 310b PDR. As proposed, the Standard Questions ask if the Applicant or Relevant Parties have existing or planned relationships with any foreign Individuals, foreign companies, Foreign Governments, and/or any Foreign Government-controlled companies or entities but only Attachment E/Broadcast Section 310b PDR contains an expansive definition of Foreign Party in Question 3 and incorporates this term in numerous subsequent questions. NAB argues that the inclusion of Foreign Party in the questions requires broadcasters to gather extensive information on each Foreign Party even if that party has a limited relationship with the applicant, such as a one-time agreement for access to a location for the production of a single program. NAB expresses concern about the burden imposed on broadcaster petitioners by the expanded scope of the Standard Questions.
31. We recognize that the broadcaster questionnaire alone seeks detailed information about relationships with Foreign Parties. Committee staff explain that questions 1317 in Attachment E/
Broadcast Section 310b PDR are designed to identify situations in which the applicant may be acting as an agent for a foreign principal and are directly related to Committee concerns under FARA. As recommended by Committee staff, we retain the Foreign Parties information requirement in questions 1317. However, since the Committee staff do not identify the need for such 26 In
their responses to the foreign relationship questions, applicants may want to consider crossreferencing their response to these other foreign employee questions to aid the Committee in its review.

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information in connection with the remaining questions, we conclude the burden of producing Foreign Party information in other questions asked in Attachment E/Broadcast Section 310b PDR outweighs the benefit of this information to the Committee.
Therefore, we remove the reference to Foreign Party in certain questions of Attachment E/Broadcast Section 310b PDR.27
F. Background Information Regarding the Applicants 32. Based on the comments in the record, we modify the Standard Questions to clarify the type of background information applicants should provide. Currently, each set of proposed Standard Questions includes several questions regarding the applicants background and asks if the Applicant, any Corporate Officers, Senior Officers, Directors, or any Individual/Entity with an Ownership Interest in the Applicant have ever been involved or associated with a previous application to the Commission or a previous filing with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States CFIUS, or if these individuals or entities have ever been convicted of any felony or been subject to any criminal, administrative, or civil penalties for imposed for violating the regulations of a number of government agencies.
33. With respect to prior Commission or CFIUS filings, USTelecom is concerned that the phrase involved or associated with could include any level of activity associated with a filing from corporate officer responsibilities to more mechanical involvement with accomplishing a filing, which seems far outside the scope of concern. To clarify and reduce burdens on the applicants, we amend this language to specify that an involved or associated Individual or Entity was either the Applicant in a prior Commission or CFIUS filing or listed as an owner in such a prior filing. Modifying the questionnaires accordingly would focus the inquiry to the parties most relevant to any prior Commission or CFIUS
filings.
34. We decline USTelecoms recommendation that the Commission provide a two-year time limit for questions concerning previous filings with the Commission or CFIUS, or that the Commission eliminate this question 27 Committee staff did not object to the deletion of Foreign Party from all other questions in this questionnaire. Specifically, we remove the reference to Foreign Party from questions 12, 18
through 21, 26, 31 through 34 in Attachment E/
Broadcast Section 310b PDR.

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with respect to prior Commission applications. We will not impose any time limit for CFIUS filings as Committee staff state that all information regarding prior CFIUS
filings would be relevant to their national security and law enforcement review. We find, however, that we can adopt a ten-year time boundary regarding prior Commission filings, which the Committee indicated would be acceptable. Although we agree that imposing a time limit regarding previous Commission filings is appropriate, we find that USTelecoms proposed two-year limit on such filings is too short and would likely exclude many relevant filings and information.
The ten-year time limit will reduce the burdens on the applicant while providing the Committee sufficient relevant information concerning recent Commission filings it requires for its review.
35. We are unpersuaded by USTelecoms argument that the questions regarding criminal, administrative, or civil penalties are incredibly broad . . . and could be extremely burdensome to even attempt to answer, particularly taking into consideration the age of some communications companies. We therefore reject USTelecoms recommendation that the Commission set parameters on this question by limiting the ownership interest threshold by 10% and creating a definitive timeframe of interest, not to exceed two years. As we explained above, we are not increasing the numerical ownership threshold from 5% or greater to 10% or greater. As to the time frame, we do not believe it would create an undue burden for applicants to report as to such serious actions taken against them or their officers, directors, or attributable owners, as we would expect them to have records of such actions.28
Additionally, Committee staff state that no time limits can be placed on the reporting period for this inquiry due to the serious nature of the underlying question, as past felonies or regulatory violations may be indicative of possible future behavior, or may give the Committee staff insight on where to focus any additional questions for the applicant.29 We agree with the 28 To the extent that an applicant is unable to provide a complete answer as to relevant criminal, administrative, or civil penalties, as discussed below, it should explain this in its submission to the Committee.
29 The Committee staff added that placing a time limit from the date of conviction would allow for situations in which an applicant would not be required to disclose a serious offense.

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