NTIA'S GALLAGHER: TASK FORCE EYES NEED FOR ‘TIE-BREAKER’ IN DISPUTES

On the pending Administration proposal to merge NTIA, the Commerce Dept.’s Technology Administration (TA) and the e-commerce duties of the International Trade Administration, Gallagher said it was clear the focus the rest of this year would be wrapping up the appropriations process. “That’s a top focus of this department interacting with Congress and Undersecy. [Philip] Bond and, if [I am] confirmed, it would certainly be my focus as we come into the close of the year,” Gallagher said.

Because that would shift action into next year, Gallagher said he anticipated policy discussions would be renewed with key House and Senate committee chairmen and ranking members next year, “with a goal of yielding a product that meets the satisfaction of all those stakeholders.” But he said the timing of final action was murky because the focus this year was on appropriations and next year is an election year. “Those things tend to cloud the ability to predict exactly what will come out of that,” he said. The restructuring proposal gained little steam on Capitol Hill this year and Senate Commerce Committee Chmn. McCain (R- Ariz.) has said he doesn’t see the proposal’s being introduced this year (CD Nov 5 p9). His committee held a confirmation hearing for Gallagher Tues. and plans to vote on his and several other nominations later. He stressed that he was speaking to us as acting NTIA director because he still hasn’t been confirmed.

Gallagher had been deputy dir. of the NTIA, departing in May to become Commerce Secy. Donald Evans’s deputy chief of staff and counselor for policy. He said he had been working with Deputy Commerce Secy. Samuel Bodman on the interagency task force, particularly since mid-Aug., when he returned to NTIA as acting dir.

The Commerce Dept. has touted the initiative as the first comprehensive study of federal govt. spectrum policy “in the modern era” (CD June 6 p1). Gallagher said the effort was twofold, involving both the govt.’s looking inward on how to improve spectrum management processes and how to pave the way for new technologies and protect incumbent services. Both goals involve the govt.’s examining its own processes and are more focused outward on the private sector, Gallagher said: “The balancing act that we are going to have is to make sure that those both are consistent.”

Task force participants have met almost weekly since late June and have involved the Dept. of Defense, Transportation Dept., NASA, Dept. of Homeland Security, Treasury Dept. and others, Gallagher said. The executive memorandum gave the task force a year to come up with recommendations for improving policies and processes. “I think we are well down the road. All issues have been identified,” he said, and attention now turns to how to reconcile internal differences. Issues under discussion have included: (1) How to establish procedures to break logjams when tough policy differences arise, as was the case with ultra-wideband (UWB) technology and proposals to make more unlicensed spectrum available at 5 GHz. (2) How to test new technologies, which also was a cornerstone of debate on UWB because commercial systems weren’t available for testing when the FCC adopted its order.

Gallagher acknowledged that the private sector had been anxiously awaiting details on the part of this effort that involved their input. While it always had been anticipated that that side of the effort would start to get attention around this time, Gallagher said he had “greater concern” about progress to date in that area. “Now we are looking at moving into the next phase I expect fairly aggressively.” He said that in the “near term” there would be at least 4 opportunities for private sector participation, including in writing, in-person meetings and upcoming forums, for which he said dates hadn’t been set yet. “I think that will go a long way toward relieving some of the stress and anxiety about the direction we are going,” he said.

Speculation had increased earlier this year, before the White House directive on spectrum was released, that it would create an entity to examine spectrum management issues more broadly than the boundaries of NTIA or the FCC (CD April 25 p1). In Feb., the General Accounting Office called for an independent federal commission to examine U.S. spectrum management, citing past govt. difficulties in resolving disputes among users. While the executive memorandum didn’t create a new White House entity on spectrum, part of the discussion by the interagency task force has involved potential “White House tie-breaking exercises or more difficult reconciliations” when spectrum policy disputes arise, Gallagher said. He said that when disputes had arisen in the past over new technologies such as UWB and spectrum for advanced wireless services such as 3G, the FCC, NTIA and the private sector had been able to agree to bridge differences. One question for the White House task force is how to “institutionalize” such dispute resolution on a longer term basis, he said.

How to address that issue has drawn a wide range of views among task force participants, he said. “They range from ‘don’t do anything, the system is fine, leave it the way it is’ to ‘we need to have a cabinet secretary for spectrum,'” he said. The group has widely acknowledged a cabinet secretary in charge of spectrum wouldn’t be a realistic solution, he said. But one suggestion under review is a “super review board” that wouldn’t be activated until a controversy reached a particular level. That would call for the involvement of a broader group of officials drawn from within the Administration and at the White House. “They would then be involved and direct the resolution of that outcome,” he said. “That is one model that has some support.”

Another model under examination would designate a “spectrum czar” that again would serve somewhere in the White House. “Everybody’s focus is at the White House,” Gallagher said. “They believe that the executive has a responsibility overlooking all the agencies.”

Also under discussion has been “technical data development,” or how policymakers test new technologies with current systems to examine what’s possible, Gallagher said. Talk has turned to whether a coordinated lab for all the agencies would be helpful, with one possibility being NTIA’s Institute for Telecom Sciences in Boulder, Colo. One thing that NTIA does that Gallagher said he would like to see as a model is to publish test plans. In comments filed in the FCC’s 5 GHz proceeding, a test plan was offered that already included input from more than 200 companies, govt. agencies and other stakeholders, he said.

In other areas, Gallagher said he remained “optimistic” that the bill that would create a spectrum relocation trust fund to make way for advanced wireless users by relocating govt. incumbents would still pass this year. “It remains a priority of the Administration,” he said. “If it didn’t pass this year, it would still remain a priority.” The legislation has been stymied by the Northpoint amendment added during a Senate Commerce Committee markup, that would allow Multichannel Video Distribution & Data Services such as Northpoint to receive use of spectrum at 12 GHz without going to auction.