President Barack Obama signed debt limit legislation Tuesday afternoon. It...

2 p1). The Senate voted 74-26 to pass the deal Tuesday, after the House agreed 269-161 to the compromise Monday. Earlier, Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., lamented that the debt limit deal didn’t include reallocation of the 700 MHz D-block to public safety. “I am disappointed that the debt compromise reached [Sunday] does not include provisions that will better allow first responders to communicate with each other and hope the special committee will consider it in its recommendations,” Lieberman said. “Despite this temporary setback, we still must fulfill the 9/11 Commission’s recommendation and pass legislation dedicating the D Block spectrum to first responders.” Public safety is “not going away” until it gets the D-block, said former Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials President Dick Mirgon in an interview Tuesday. The Alliance plans another public safety fly-in before Sept. 11, he said. The Public Safety Alliance was disappointed that Congress missed the “opportunity” presented by the debt limit bill, but the issue is “not dead” and the group is still optimistic about passing a bill before Sept. 11, Mirgon said. To meet that goal, the House Commerce Committee must set the public safety network as its highest priority and “make it happen,” he said. Passing public safety spectrum legislation by Sept. 11 is looking “less likely,” Medley Global Advisors analyst Jeff Silva wrote investors Tuesday. Passage later this year “is not necessarily out of the picture, though substantial challenges remain,” he said. “Even if the deficit-reduction super committee fails to include public safety/incentive auction language in legislation … it is still possible spectrum provisions could be woven into stopgap funding (continuing resolution) before the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1 in order to pay for extended unemployment benefits and/or other programs not included in the debt relief bill."