House Staffers Gear Up for Communications Act Overhaul, With Stakeholder Briefings
House staffers kicked off the planned internal bipartisan briefings on overhauling the Communications Act, as expected (CD Oct 2 p6). Republicans on the House Commerce Committee announced plans to overhaul the act in December, but Republicans and Democrats had not communicated about the initiative until now.
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The initial private meetings are organized around different industry types. The first meeting Thursday focused on wireline issues, featuring speakers from Comptel, NTCA and USTelecom. The first two meetings are in Rayburn, with the second, scheduled for Tuesday, to focus on wireless issues, with speakers from CTIA, the Competitive Carriers Association, Wireless Innovation Alliance and Wireless Internet Service Providers Association (WISPA). WISPA Legislative Chairwoman Elizabeth Bowles, a past president of the group, will speak at the Tuesday briefing, and WISPA outside counsel Steve Coran, an attorney with Lerman Senter, will also attend, said a WISPA spokeswoman. CCA President Steve Berry will participate, a spokeswoman said. There’s also a staff briefing scheduled for Thursday on video market issues, with speakers from NAB, NCTA, DirecTV and Dish Network presenting, industry officials told us.
The goal of these sessions is for staffers of both parties to listen and ask questions of industry officials. An industry official said he has heard the lawmakers will hold more briefings with different officials later this fall.
"I think it can be done,” WISPA’s Bowles told us of a Communications Act overhaul. “The Communications Act does need modernization.” At the briefing, each speaker will get five minutes to speak and then there will be time for questions, she said. She plans to spend her five minutes talking about how the silos of Communications Act regulation are “no longer relevant” in an era of IP technology, where consumers increasingly use VoIP. The voice requirement in USF should be dropped, she said, calling for a decoupling of any voice requirement from Connect America Fund money. Policymakers must “tread very carefully” on net neutrality, she said. “We don’t think information services should be regulated under Title II,” but do back an open Internet, she said, citing the expensive implications of fast and slow lanes for small businesses. Her briefing will touch on net neutrality and the need for unlicensed spectrum. Bowles also said she thinks there should be more focus on getting the entire country to speeds of 4 Mbps download/1 Mbps upload before looking at a higher speed such as 10 Mbps.
"The majority has announced that in the month of October, the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology will be hosting a series of stakeholder meetings in the continued effort to update the Communications Act,” said one invitation. “These meetings will be bipartisan and staff from Communications and Technology Subcommittee Member offices are invited to attend.”
These briefings are “significant in a couple of ways,” Free State Foundation President Randolph May told us, saying they show the “seriousness” of lawmakers’ intent to update the act. “The meetings can be helpful to the staff from an educational standpoint in terms of addressing particular concerns and clarifying points. Obviously, to some extent, each company or trade group that goes in will have its own parochial interest in mind. That’s what you would expect. But at the end of the day, when the Communications Act ultimately is overhauled, if it is done correctly, then everyone won’t be happy. In other words, the right result won’t just be a conglomeration of compromises that produces a near unanimous result amidst shouts of ‘Kumbaya.'”
House Republicans hope to pursue the initiative more aggressively after the November midterms and in the next Congress, a committee staffer has said. They've solicited feedback from stakeholders on different communications topics all year in the form of five white papers, with more expected to be issued. Most of the parties involved in the briefings have commented. A committee spokesman didn’t confirm or comment on the details of the October briefings.
Capitol Hill staffers who attempted to overhaul the Communications Act in 2005 and 2006 did similar briefings with industry officials, which they referred to as listening sessions (CD Feb 11 p3). That attempt failed, with a narrow bill advancing through the House and a Senate bill stalled amid net neutrality debates, among others. (jhendel@warren-news.com)