House Commerce Markup of FCC Reauth Bill Seen Unlikely in Near Future

House Commerce staffers were continuing to revise Blackburn's draft language before the bill's formal filing, industry lobbyists said. Committee Republicans are apparently aiming to have “pen to paper in the next couple of weeks” and are trying to negotiate a bipartisan compromise with Democratic colleagues, one telecom lobbyist said. “No one has seen” any circulating revisions to the Blackburn draft, which indicates a markup “probably” won't happen until at least after Congress returns from its Columbus Day recess, a Republican-leaning telecom lobbyist said. “Typically, those drafts are floating around” at this point in the process if a markup is near, the lobbyist said. House Commerce didn't comment. A committee aide said there's “no update” on the timeline.

The delay appears at least in part to reflect shifts in House Commerce priorities since the August recess' end, said American Action Forum Director-Technology and Innovation Policy Will Rinehart. “It may just be a workflow issue” for the committee given ongoing work on healthcare issues that have consumed many staffers' attention in recent weeks, he said. House Commerce may also be prioritizing preparations for its upcoming Oct. 3 hearing on the Equifax data breach (see 1709080019 and 1709130025), Rinehart said.

House Commerce Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., certainly “has a lot to do” and may have decided against rushing on FCC reauthorization, given the urgency of other issues the committee follows, a telecom lobbyist said. House Commerce Democrats indicated they “aren't particularly enamored” with Blackburn's original draft language and Walden may be willing to wait to see if negotiations can provide a “bipartisan push” to advance it in the House, the lobbyist said. “If [Robin Colwell, the committee's chief GOP telecom counsel, and her Democratic counterpart David Goldman] can find some common ground, then something could move," a Democratic-leaning lobbyist said.

There hasn't been much GOP outreach to House Commerce Democrats yet on revising the Blackburn draft, a Democratic aide told us. "We're hopeful we can have productive conversations" on FCC rechartering in the future but the original draft was clearly a "very Republican bill," the aide said: "There are a lot of provisions in there that we're just not going to be able to" support. "I think the Republicans understand that if they're going to go forward with a partisan bill, then we're not going to be on board," the aide said. "Or they can go bipartisan and maybe there are things we can find agreement on."

Blackburn's original draft would likely make it through Commerce and the full House on a party-line vote given inclusion of several Republican-backed proposals for FCC process overhauls and language to codify FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's pilot project to make draft agenda items public three weeks before commissioners' meetings, a Democratic lobbyist said. But a bill crammed with “GOP wish-list items” would likely wither under Senate scrutiny, the lobbyist said. Bipartisan legislation would likely put pressure on Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., and ranking member Bill Nelson, D-Fla., to “do something” with the bill or move forward on their own legislation, the Democratic lobbyist said. Thune indicated it's unlikely his committee would be ready to mark up a Senate version this year.