NTIA Part of Obama Plan to Consolidate Government
NTIA would be swept up in a merger of government agencies proposed Friday by President Barack Obama. Obama proposed combining the U.S. Commerce Department’s “core business and trade functions” with the Small Business Administration, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corp. and the U.S. Trade and Development Agency. The Commerce Department bucket includes NTIA and other subordinate agencies except NOAA, which would move to the Interior Department, White House officials said. Obama asked Congress to give him “consolidation authority” to make the proposed mergers and future reorganizations. Members of Congress appeared supportive of the plan, in statements Friday.
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!
Many of the agencies involved in the merger are involved with communications, Internet and electronics sector issues. NTIA manages government spectrum and advises the president on telecom and Internet issues. The agency ran the DTV Transition and the $4.7 billion Broadband Technology Opportunities Program providing grants for broadband buildout. The Small Business Administration also works on broadband issues and occasionally participates in FCC proceedings. USTR has been involved with free trade agreements affecting telecom and intellectual property piracy issues. The U.S. Export-Import Bank has played an important role in recent years in securing financing for satellite projects.
Congress must still agree to give the president consolidation authority, and then separately approve Obama’s specific proposal. The president plans to make additional proposals once he has the consolidation authority, said Federal Chief Performance Officer Jeff Zients said on a teleconference. The trade and commerce bodies listed Friday are to be combined into a “tightly integrated new department with four pillars, Zients said. NTIA would fall under the “technology and innovation” pillar, as would the Patent Office and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Zients said. The other three pillars are (1) statistics, (2) trade and investment and (3) small business and economic development, he said. The head of the department will be part of the president’s cabinet.
"I am calling on Congress to reinstate the authority that past presidents have had to streamline and reform the Executive Branch,” Obama said. “This is the same sort of authority that every business owner has to make sure that his or her company keeps pace with the times. And let me be clear: I will only use this authority for reforms that result in more efficiency, better service, and a leaner government.”
The Republican-led House Commerce Committee “welcomed the idea of consolidating duplicative and complex federal agencies,” it said. Other House Republicans also praised the idea. Commerce Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., said he looked forward to reviewing the proposal to shrink the government. “American businesses face challenges enough in a struggling economy,” Upton said. “Unfortunately, many of the commerce and trade programs that were established to promote American enterprise are actually stifling it because of the complexity of multiple government bureaucracies."
The Senate Commerce Committee “will be taking a hard look at the details of this plan and listening carefully to the concerns of those impacted,” said Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. “It is the right time to elevate small business to the top of our national priorities, and we need more ideas for saving taxpayer dollars and making government more efficient. With any significant reorganization, it is also important to put a premium on maintaining proven expertise on matters critical to the economy."
Getting approval from the Congress could be difficult, observers said. The proposal isn’t likely to get much traction on winning votes in Congress, a state regulatory analyst said. It’s not the first proposal to radically consolidate agency functions, said Public Knowledge Legal Director Harold Feld. Though it sounds good in theory, implementation would be hard, he said, and it’s “highly unlikely” that the Congress will approve the proposal.
The reorganization would have minimal impact on NTIA, observers said. NTIA’s specific functions are not generally replicated in any other agency and it’s a fairly small office, Feld said. “There isn’t anyone else to coordinate federal spectrum,” he said. MF Guggenheim Partners analyst Paul Gallant agreed. “NTIA has a direct pipeline to the White House on telecom policy. A reorganization isn’t going to change that.” While many of the details of the coming changes remain unclear, one satellite industry lawyer said there’s no immediate reason to think “such a consolidation should affect the role of [Export-Import Bank] in satellite financings in any negative way."
If the proposal goes through, broadband mapping would go forward but BTOP grants might be curtailed or get more oversight, the state regulatory analyst said. “That would have happened in any case, since Congress would like to see that sort of stimulus spending reduced anyway,” she said. TechAmerica welcomed the proposal but cautioned against any changes that would hamper trade issues. Any changes at the USTR “must not dilute its mission or hamper our ability to respond in real time,” said the group’s acting CEO Dan Varroney.