House to Debate Bill Giving FCC $2 Million for DTV Education
The House today (Wednesday) is set to debate an appropriations bill (HR-2829) that would give the FCC $2 million to design a program explaining the shift from analog to digital TV. The FCC originally sought $1.5 million, but the Financial Services Subcommittee upped the sum out of concern about “low” public awareness about the transition. The overall bill could face a veto, since it contains provisions dealing with pay raises for members of Congress.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
FCC jurisdiction moved from the Commerce-State- Justice Subcommittee to the newly created Financial Services and General Government Operations Subcommittee when the 110th Congress began. The realignment included the Treasury Department, IRS, District of Columbia, GSA and Executive Office of the President. IRS appropriations are a likely target of interrogation as Democrats have ended the private contracting of tax collections that Republicans put in place.
But FCC appropriations likely will not spur debate on the House floor. The Appropriations Committee gave the FCC its requested $313 million for FY 2008, of which $1 million would come from direct funding, the rest from regulatory revenues. “The committee expects the FCC to keep it fully informed of any plans for further research and action on cable choice systems and their effects on consumers,” the committee said in a statement after marking up the bill.
Some members of Congress grumble privately about the paltriness of FCC’s request for DTV consumer education funding compared with its hefty wish list for funds to cover policing fraud at the Universal Service Fund (USF), Hill sources said. To muscle up USF oversight, the FCC sought 19 more employees and budgetary authority of $20.4 million. To school viewers on the DTV transition, the FCC sought only $1.5 million. In its USF request, the FCC said that it was heeding Government Accountability Office (GAO) advice to set meaningful USF goals and measures. By GAO standards, that would mean more program audits; accurate tallies of fraud, waste, and abuse; and developing internal controls to ensure the USF obeys the law.
HR-2829 would outlaw federally funded video news releases in an obscure item tucked between provisions on federal worker pay raises and health plans. The language would bar executive agencies from using funds to package news stories “unless the story clearly indicates, within its text or audio, that it was prepared or funded by that federal agency.”