Congress Close to Consensus on Spectrum Legislation, Say Aides

While differences on spectrum legislation remain between the House and Senate, “it’s remarkable how close we are on [the] key points,” said John Branscome, Democratic counsel for the Senate Commerce Committee. “The differences between the parties and the chambers grow smaller and smaller each day,” said the committee’s GOP counsel, David Quinalty. Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said earlier this week he was open to reducing to $7 billion from $11 billion the amount of money that would go to funding the public network (CD Dec 7 p1). Rockefeller had wanted $11 billion, mainly to ensure buildout of wireless broadband in rural areas, but he’s willing to consider lower amounts to get the bill done, Branscome said. House Commerce Committee GOP counsel David Redl said that, while the House bill proposes $6.5 billion, Republicans realize that the spectrum bill must pass both chambers and that some concessions have to be made.

House Commerce is “prepared for regular order” to move the spectrum bill, Redl said. But it will wait while GOP leadership looks at adding the bill to a year-end spending package, he said. The full committee will mark up the bill if that doesn’t happen, he said. The timing for passing spectrum legislation depends what happens in the House, Branscome said. The Senate is prepared to move through regular order but it’s “always easier” in the Senate to add to a larger must-pass package, Quinalty said.

All of the Hill aides said cybersecurity is a likely focus next year, though House Commerce minority counsel Shawn Chang said spectrum comes first. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has said he wants to work on cybersecurity in the first work period of next year. Rockefeller wants to work methodically on the issue across jurisdictional lines, Branscome said. “We're really only one major incident or breach away from significant legislative activity,” he said. Hill proposals offered after that incident occurs may not be as reasonable as the ones on the table now, he said. Congress should move forward now on the specific areas where there is already consensus, and then find agreement on more contentious issues, Quinalty said. Congress is close to agreement on data security, he added.

Senate Commerce will “watch closely” FCC implementation of the Universal Service Fund order, Branscome said. House Commerce is scrutinizing the process that led to the FCC’s Universal Service Fund order, Redl said. It’s not looking as much at the substance of the order, he said. House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., is concerned about a last-minute data dump before the order’s adoption, and changes between adoption and release that led to the addition of 250 pages, Redl said. Chang defended the so-called data dump. The late filings were already publicly available, but were placed in the record to ensure stakeholders had a “fuller understanding” of documents reviewed by the FCC, he said. The FCC recently opened a rulemaking to look more closely at the issue, he added.

FCC process reform is “very important” to Walden, Redl said. The goal is to bring transparency and “predictability” to the FCC, he said. House Commerce Democrats “are not against reform” if there are problems, but Walden’s HR-3309 “creates this Administrative Procedure Act island for the FCC,” separating the commission from all the other federal agencies, Chang said. The House last week passed a bill changing the APA, making things even more “messy,” he said. Redl said he didn’t know when the full committee markup would happen.

FCC reform appears unlikely to move quickly in the Senate, aides from that chamber said. Branscome doesn’t “see a real groundswell” for FCC reform bills in Senate Commerce, he said. Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., sponsor of the Senate companion bills, didn’t even show up for the FCC nominations hearing, Branscome added. Ranking Member Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, supports the bills and agrees with Walden’s concerns, Quinalty said. But he said to expect more activity on the subject in the House.

Expect a Rockefeller bill next year on cramming, Branscome said. Cramming is the practice of billing customers -- often on behalf of third parties -- for products or services they either didn’t order or don’t want. Senate Commerce released a “damning” report on the practice earlier this year, Branscome noted. Rockefeller said in a hearing this summer that he wanted to ban all third-party charges on landline phone bills (CD July 14 p5). “You will see activity on this in the Senate Commerce Committee,” Branscome said.

Privacy will continue to receive focus in Senate Commerce, especially with increasing use of mobile services like geolocation, Branscome said. Senate Commerce Republicans, however, want Congress to act cautiously so as not to “stunt” the growth of business models that are still developing, Quinalty said. Updating the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act is not an immediate focus, but Senate Commerce could look at it later, Branscome said. Updating CALEA isn’t on committee Republicans’ radar, Quinalty said.

An overhaul of the Telecom Act is not a priority for House Commerce, Redl said. The Act needs reform but it’s difficult to do, especially with the current Congress continuing to disagree on net neutrality, Quinalty said. Rockefeller is interested in Telecom Act reforms both targeted and broad, said Branscome, but “one person’s reform is another person’s restriction.”