well, in a word,  whoever told you the fcc is not such a good model-- they are right!

perhaps you may want to show whoever the  decisionmakers are on this new regulatory agency  some of the current recommendations for reforming the FCC-- which could help highlight the problems with its structure and save you a lot of trouble later dealing with an inept, captured agency that responds more to corporate interests than the public.

here is a blog post by harold feld who mentions a number of other sources with detailed critiques of fcc structure. and one of the first links is his white paper on the subject- "painless reforms to improve the fcc."

http://tales-of-the-sausage-factory.wetmachine.com/content/reform-week-at-the-fcc-and-why-letting-in-the-public-is-better

i am cc:ing harold too- i know he is quite busy with the problems of our US agency, but he follows this stuff pretty closely and may have more ideas for resources. 



also, i have two articles i have written from an activists point of view about how the FCC works. my attempt to explain to lay people why such bad policy comes out of our government.  in truth, our fcc is not half as bad as congress. but that is not saying much.
 unfortunately i haven't posted these articles to our new website yet, so i will try attaching them and see if they come through to the list- i don't think they are too big.