Senate Commerce Advances Bipartisan FCC Reauthorization; Floor Vote Likely by End of May

“Probably sometime before the end of the next month, we’ll try and move this FCC [reauthorization] across the floor,” Thune told reporters following the markup. “There’s some housekeeping stuff that has to be taken care of before we can do it, but we’ll try as soon as we can to get it through the floor.”

“It’s a clean reauthorization,” Commerce Committee ranking member Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said. “There’s a reason that the agency has not been reauthorized for 25 years. It’s hard to do without attracting controversy.” Following the markup vote, Nelson lauded Thune for keeping the FCC reauthorization bill “relatively noncontroversial” and said he would be “happy to co-sponsor” it given that state. He hopes Thune will work to ensure it “doesn’t become a vehicle of trying to inject some of the very controversial things that are in front of us,” he said.

Committee staffers had resolved to include 17 of the amendments as of late Tuesday night, with senior GOP staff alerting other committee members of that settled deal. The only amendments unresolved then, after 11 p.m. Tuesday, were two from Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., one that was included Wednesday and one that was not. The included amendment would require the FCC to submit a report on the use of certain proceeds from a competitive bidding process. Excluded was Moran’s amendment requiring the FCC to report on auctions it plans to conduct in the succeeding 12 months.

Accepted amendments include one from Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., that would compel the FCC to begin a cramming rulemaking. “This committee has played an instrumental role” under Thune and in the last Congress “in exposing this blatantly anti-consumer practice,” Blumenthal said. “This measure will help stop the really blatantly unscrupulous practices.”

The reauthorization included another Blumenthal amendment introduced with Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., that would compel FCC action on promoting broadband access for veterans; an amendment from Sens. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., Steve Daines, R-Mont., and Tom Udall, D-N.M., that would require a report on the broadcast TV incentive auction repacking process; another from Cantwell, Daines and Udall to require the FCC to determine the impact of universal service support on tribes; a Daines amendment requiring the inspector general to concurrently submit semiannual reports to the FCC and Congress; an amendment from Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., with the backing of senators of both parties that would require a report on the Universal Service Rural Health Care Program; a Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., amendment with Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., to compel a disclaimer with any FCC notice of apparent liability; a Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn/Fischer amendment intended to modify a section requiring default configuration of multiline telephone systems for direct dialing of 911; an amendment from Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., with bipartisan backers requiring a feasibility study on conducting mobile broadband drive testing in rural areas; an amendment from Moran and Udall that would give the FCC chief information officer the authority to participate in budget planning decisions on IT; and a measure from Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., to require the FCC to issue a report on the agency’s broadband deployment and subscription data collection services.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., secured an amendment with Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., that would require the U.S. comptroller general to study federal spectrum opportunity cost and federal spectrum technology. Nelson mentioned that members of the intelligence communities expressed concern, but that Rubio committed to Nelson, a member of the Armed Services Committee, to “resolve these concerns as the bill moves forward.”

S-2644 now includes amendments that would call for five GAO reports on top of the regulatory fee fairness report that the bill already mandates. Included is the Booker amendment with Johnson that would compel a GAO study on the IP transition; a Daines amendment with Cantwell calling for a GAO study on whether the regulatory fee structure of the FCC has a disparate impact on small-sized payors; a Daines amendment that would require a GAO study on possible waste and overbuilding within the E-rate program; the amendment from Manchin, requiring a GAO study on the National Broadband Map; and an amendment from Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, compelling a GAO report on USF program filing requirements.

Members of the committee had filed 39 amendments altogether. Those not accepted in the voice-vote deal were not offered at the markup. Those amendments included two from Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, on Cuba telecom policy. An amendment from Daines and Manchin to exempt ISPs with 250,000 or fewer subscribers from the net neutrality order’s enhanced transparency requirements -- reflecting a bill that unanimously passed the House this year -- wasn’t included. A Daines aide told us that there simply was not enough time to press for its inclusion. Daines is committed to getting the measure through the Senate and is looking at all options, the aide said. Also not included was an amendment from Udall that would have made changes to how the FCC determines regulatory fees.

Thune has committed to action on rural call completion legislation this summer, Klobuchar said when she withdrew her amendment on rural call completion problems. “We haven’t done anything except a resolution,” Klobuchar said, lamenting the problem.

As expected, the FCC Process Reform Act stirred Democratic opposition. “I cannot support the legislation that would hamstring the FCC in its key consumer protection role,” Nelson said in announcing his opposition and urging a similar stance from his colleagues.

“The stakes here are high,” Heller, its lead sponsor, said in defending the measure. He lauded the “excellent” report from Johnson on the White House’s influence on the net neutrality rulemaking. “I would ask the ranking member, where is the consumer protection in this?” Heller said. He brought up a recent push from lawmakers for a cost-benefit analysis of the FCC’s set-top box proposal. Commerce Republicans approved the measure despite Democratic objections.