Walden: Public Safety Governance Divides House, Senate
The major area of disagreement remaining between the House and Senate on spectrum legislation is the governance structure for the national public safety network, said House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore. Middle ground has been found on several other contentious issues, he told Communications Daily on Tuesday. The House was expected after our deadline to pass the original Walden spectrum legislation as part of a larger spending bill (HR-3630) to extend the payroll tax cut and other items. The bill’s spectrum language is expected to change later in the process to reflect bicameral talks.
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!
"We've had some productive discussions” with the Senate, “but we're at a point on governance where it’s hard to figure out how you do an in-between model at this point,” Walden told us. “We came [down] an enormous and difficult trail on D-block, and they dismissed that as no gift,” said Walden, referring to his recent change of position to supporting reallocation of the 700 MHz D-block to public safety. “I can only go so far on so much.” Walden thinks there is agreement between the House and Senate on unlicensed and auction eligibility, he said. The disagreement is “really probably more about governance than anything else,” he said. “I just don’t want to create a big Washington-based bureaucracy and I'm concerned [the Democrats'] model does that.”
Talks with the Senate were put on hold until after the House vote Tuesday, Walden said. The House’s spectrum bill was “locked down” and legislators couldn’t change the bill’s language to reflect negotiations with the Senate, Walden said. But the talks will resume and the bill can be changed later in the process, he said. When the bill moves to the Senate, the Senate can either take the House’s language “carte blanche or they're going to rewrite,” he said.
The House and Senate are “working at [a deal] furiously,” Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., told reporters. Rockefeller agreed that governance is still an area of disagreement, but declined to discuss areas of consensus. On funding, Rockefeller said he’s seeking “at least” $7.5 billion for the public safety network. That amount is $1 billion more than proposed in the House bill, but $3.5 billion less than what Rockefeller sought in S-911.
"There are talks” between the House and Senate but “it has not yet been worked out,” said House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Henry Waxman, D-Calif. “Nothing’s agreed upon until everything’s agreed upon,” he told reporters Tuesday afternoon. Waxman is “optimistic” that consensus can be found, but the GOP is moving at a “slow, leisurely pace,” he said. “More likely than not, we'll get this one worked through,” because the payroll tax cut and other extenders are considered must-pass, he said.
It’s “grossly irresponsible” to have a state-by-state governance model managed by a private company, as proposed by the House GOP, said Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass., and House Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. In an op-ed Tuesday on The Huffington Post, Kerry and Eshoo advocated strongly for more unlicensed spectrum. The FCC must retain “the ability to ensure that we do not create a wireless duopoly,” Kerry and Eshoo said. “We know and accept that a significant portion of the spectrum we release will go to auction to the big telephone companies, but some should go to new entrants and some should be set aside and open to all innovators, both large and small, for the creation of the next generation of unlicensed Wi-Fi devices that do not rely on the telephone companies for their development and deployment."
While the Public Safety Alliance applauded the House on Tuesday for including D-block reallocation in HR-3630, the Alliance opposed how the bill handles governance. The third-party administrator envisioned by Walden “looks much too similar to the administrator process that has been used in the 800 MHz rebanding process, which continues to be burdensome, costly and contentious,” said the Alliance, which supports the Democratic proposal. The Alliance also objects to requiring public safety to give back 700 MHz narrowband spectrum, and wants more funding for the network than the $6.5 billion proposed by the House GOP, it said.
The Rural Cellular Association opposed the House bill’s restrictions on auction eligibility conditions. In a letter Tuesday to House and Senate Commerce Committee leaders, RCA said appropriate conditions encourage greater participation and prevent market concentration. Section 4105 of the House bill “may restrict existing [FCC] authority to the detriment of competition and revenue generation,” they said.
The White House will veto HR-3630 if it comes to President Barack Obama’s desk, the Office of Management and Budget said Tuesday afternoon. OMB objected to items in the bill unrelated to spectrum. The veto threat doesn’t preclude a deal being worked out before the Congressional session ends. Congressional leaders have said they could leave as soon as Friday, but may stay longer if necessary.