NTCA Lobbies 78 Hill Offices to Press Priorities on Retrans, USF, Call Completion

The association is receptive but tracking with caution the various overhauls that may come to a head in the next Congress, whether sweeping changes to telecom law or overhaul of the video market. Those were hot topics as 64 NTCA members visited 78 different congressional offices of members representing 23 states on Tuesday, NTCA told us.

“Let’s not wreck those things that are working,” NTCA Senior Vice President-Policy Michael Romano said of the Telecom Act. House Republicans launched an attempt to overhaul the act in December, and NTCA has been an active participant in responding to the Communications Subcommittee’s white papers this year. “It’s an important dialogue to have,” Romano said. He prefers the idea of an update to the act rather than a total rewrite, praising “a lot of important principles” included in the 1996 act and suggesting “a surgical look at what provisions are or are not working.”

There’s a “good record being developed” in the House as white paper responses come in, said NTCA Vice President-Legislative Affairs David Hoover.

NTCA sees the potential for debate on Local Choice, a stalled Senate broadcast a la carte proposal from this fall, to coincide with a Communications Act overhaul, Hoover said. “We’re taking a look at it,” Hoover said of Local Choice. “Whether this becomes a driver for” overhauling the Communications Act “remains to be seen.” Retrans disputes are “particularly troublesome” for some NTCA members and came up Tuesday, Hoover said. Romano called the video market “broken” and said NTCA is “supportive of the concept” behind Local Choice, which broadcasters have opposed. NTCA is a member of the American Television Alliance, a coalition including many pay-TV industry members that lobbied heavily in favor of Local Choice earlier this year.

Laying Groundwork with Lawmakers

“I talked to the folks about Title II in regards to net neutrality,” outlining NTCA’s position, Eatel General Counsel Janet Britton, a member of NTCA’s 2015 board, told us of her Tuesday visits. She talked to staffers in four Hill offices, including that of House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., and did not include specific requests so much as brief staffers on certain issues, she said.

Video was a prominent topic, Britton said, referring to CBS’s recent announcement that it will offer standalone streaming service online. “The burdens on our network are heavy,” Britton said, citing a need to “beef up” the network as a result of heavy use from companies like Amazon, Facebook and Netflix. People refer to the Internet’s free service but “it’s not free for us,” she said, calling the burdens “very troubling.”

TDS Telecom sees such Hill visits as “very useful activity,” solidifying relationships, State Government Affairs Manager Jean Pauk told us. “Most offices asked us to keep in touch so they could assist in the future with our broadband and video issues,” she wrote in a recent blog post about Hill visits she made in September as part of a different NTCA fly-in of members. TDS, an NTCA member, said its four lobbying focuses are the need to create a USF fund for standalone broadband, retrans overhaul, concerns about municipal broadband networks and rural call completion problems.

Of the 18 congressional offices Pauk visited in September, she met with lawmakers themselves in about a third of them, and legislative staffers in the others, she said. TDS had joined with the Minnesota Telecom Alliance to meet with Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken, both Minnesota Democrats, and six representatives, it said. It joined the Wisconsin State Telecom Association to meet with Sens. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., and Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and eight other representatives, including Reps. Paul Ryan and Jim Sensenbrenner, both Wisconsin Republicans.

Hundreds of Thousands Lobbying

NTCA has spent more than $500,000 lobbying this year so far. In the latest quarter, NTCA spent $120,000, plus $180,000 in Q1 and $220,000 in Q2. It spent slightly more last year across the first three quarters, $580,000 in 2013’s first three compared to $520,000 in 2014 at this point. NTCA has four registered lobbyists: Tom Wacker, Tammie Logan, Leif Oveson and Scott Lively. “The association bases its approaches on whether or not policies are flexible in their application to rural carriers that have different needs and capabilities and that have far different economies of scale and competitive opportunities than larger carriers,” said its latest lobbying report.

Legislation tracked in Q3 included the USA Freedom Act surveillance overhaul (S-1599/HR-3361), Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act reauthorization proposals, the Video Choice Act (HR-3719) and Anti-Spoofing Act (HR-3670), its report said.

Rural call completion problems remain a huge priority, NTCA officials said. “This is an issue that’s still outstanding at the FCC,” Hoover said, saying lawmakers’ offices are “getting complaints from consumers.” Romano said it’s been a year since the FCC's order barring false ring sounds when the phone isn't actually ringing. “These are not easy problems to solve,” Romano said. “Something needs to happen.”

NTCA strongly backed the Public Safety and Economic Security Communications Act (S-2125), which Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., introduced earlier this year to combat call completion problems. It never advanced in the Commerce Committee, although ranking member John Thune, R-S.D., told us following its introduction that legislation would be “appropriate” if FCC efforts were not “effective in reducing the call completion problem within a reasonable time.” Thune is expected to chair Commerce if the Senate becomes controlled by Republicans following this week’s midterm election (see 1410300035).

Johnson is retiring after his current term. “We’d love to see someone pick up the standard,” Romano said of Johnson’s bill. Romano emphasized the bipartisan and bicameral nature of this issue, citing “plenty of folks active on call completion from day 1” on the Hill. He pointed to Klobuchar and Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb.

These Hill meetings are NTCA’s “strongest card,” Romano said, praising members’ “grassroots advocacy” and often “a personal relationship” with lawmakers. He said NTCA has refocused its internal operations on Hill advocacy and making sure members interact with lawmakers. NTCA has begun releasing video interviews in the past year where CEO Shirley Bloomfield talks with lawmakers, including Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, and House Communications Subcommittee Vice Chairman Bob Latta, R-Ohio.

Romano and Hoover framed the Tuesday meetings not so much as full of specific requests of lawmakers as, in Romano’s words, “touching base” and “progress reports,” especially on FCC USF overhaul efforts and NTCA’s pressure on the issue of standalone broadband. USF concerns “first and foremost” qualify as “a commonality across the membership,” Romano said, citing the need for a “tailored approach” for smaller companies in how the FCC proceeds with the Connect America Fund. It’s important to “make sure Congress is aware” in case NTCA needs to make requests later on, whether for writing letters to the FCC or legislative action, he said -- if agency action stalls, “we’ll be asking for their help.”