Mirgon Says D-Block Reallocation Would Pass House Communications
Public safety believes it has enough GOP votes on the House Communications Subcommittee to approve an amendment there that would give them the 700 MHz D-block, a top Public Safety Alliance official said Wednesday on Capitol Hill. Dick Mirgon, the immediate past president of the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials, and John Walsh from America’s Most Wanted urged Commerce Committee leaders to stop delaying a spectrum markup in the Communications Subcommittee. “There is no reason” for the messing around that’s going on with this, Walsh said.
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"There will be Republicans to support” a D-block reallocation amendment if offered in the Communications Subcommittee, Mirgon predicted. Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., “needs to take action to help move this,” Mirgon said. Mirgon declined to name which Republicans supported reallocation, but at least three subcommittee Republicans have said they are undecided (CD Oct 19 p17), and that’s all subcommittee Democrats would need to pass a reallocation amendment, assuming Democrats stay united behind reallocation. Subcommittee Ranking Member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., has said Democrats will offer the amendment. If the subcommittee and committee doesn’t pass it, she has said she wants to debate the issue on the House floor.
Not every undecided Republican is on board for public safety. Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Calif., “is leaning in favor of the Republican committee draft” that auctions the D-block “because it still provides for a public safety network while also freeing up additional commercial spectrum that will help grow jobs and provide deficit offsets,” a Bilbray spokesman said.
"We're still waiting for the Republicans” to move spectrum legislation in the House Commerce Committee, Ranking Member Henry Waxman, D-Calif., told us. He wants to see a bill go through the committee and Congress under regular order, as opposed to through the process of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction. “I don’t think the super committee will make the decisions” about governance, interoperability and other specific issues, he said.
"The House has to get a conscience,” and the Commerce Committee “has to bring it to a vote,” said Walsh, who urged immediate reallocation of the D-block. “Republicans and Democrats have to just bury the hatchet for 35 seconds and not worry about who’s going to get credit for it or what party’s going to look like the good guy,” Walsh said. He said he’s “never seen such gridlock in 30 years of coming up here to Washington, D.C.”
Walden’s office cited progress on spectrum. “For months, we have been working with Democrats to put forth the most effective bill that establishes a public safety network, reduces the deficit, and promotes wireless broadband,” a Walden spokeswoman said Wednesday. “Chairman Walden has said he hopes to finish this by the end of the year, and we are making good progress."
Subcommittee Republicans want a national network for public safety, but aren’t all convinced that public safety needs another 10 MHz of spectrum, since public safety got 24 MHz in the DTV Transition, a GOP staffer said. The staffer said his office supported Walden’s draft bill. But it may ultimately be the super committee that decides the issue, the staffer said.
Public safety has “very strong supporters” on the super committee, Mirgon said, refusing to name them. The super committee, which is expected to look at spectrum, should not “decouple” the D-block from voluntary incentive auctions, since the auctions will pay for the national public safety network, Mirgon said. Auctioning the D-block won’t raise much revenue because it will require guard bands, he said.
Walsh said he doubts commercial companies would help public safety if they were to be auctioned the D-block: “It will be a cold day in Hell before the media or the owners of that D-block spectrum decided to give it back to public services.”