> When I dealt with DOE, the actual rules proposed were put in the Federal Register for comment, so that we could actually comment on the rules making. I guess it works differently now or the FCC being an "independent board" does it different.

The DOE is a single-decisionmaker hierarchy, and so there is no body that has to vote on proposals before they are formal proposals, the appropriate decisionmaker simply decides, and its a formal proposal.

But what is published in the FR for comment as "the actual rules proposed" would generally be an NPRM -- a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking -- which, in this matter, was published last year (linked upthread.) The internal drafts that are discussed after the comments are received but before either a second NPRM or a Final Rule is finalized on are not published in the Federal Register. And that's what the draft(s) circulating in the FCC prior to the upcoming vote are.

The difference between a department like DOE and a commission like the FCC is that the way that a formal proposal (NPRM) or rule -- the kind of thing that would be published in the Federal Register -- is decided on by the FCC or other commission is by a vote.