STELA Stakeholders See Clean Reauthorization Likeliest Outcome

There “seems to be a starting presumption” Congress will enact a “nice, clean extension” of the core provisions, “but we often start there and we don’t always end up there,” said Mintz Levin’s Seth Davidson, who represents NCTA on statute-related matters and was speaking on his own behalf. NCTA hasn’t stated a position in the 2019 renewal debate but was an active participant during the 2014 round. “Outside forces” could result in a final reauthorization bill again “becoming a vehicle for things that have nothing to do with” central STELA issues, including the increasing market share of over-the-top providers or stakeholders pushing to use a bill to revamp elements of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Davidson said.

A “narrower resolution” appears likely because of Capitol Hill dynamics, including divisions between the majority-Democratic House and Republican-controlled Senate, Davidson said. Larger-scale revamps of video policy like the Local Choice Act broadcast a la carte proposal or the Next Generation Television Marketplace Act championed by House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., are “probably too big a bite for this Congress to do,” Davidson said. “It’s hard to reform one piece of it without at least looking at some of the other pieces.”

NAB shifted its opening position for this round and now opposes renewing the statute, unlike in 2014 when it favored a clean reauthorization, said Vice President-Government Relations Shawn Donilon. NAB began lobbying Congress in October against recertifying the law (see 1810090045). The group questions how much time either chamber will want to devote to STELA reauthorization, partly because the House Commerce Committee has been concentrating on net neutrality legislation and the House Judiciary Committee focused on a raft of investigations of President Donald Trump’s administration, Donilon said. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., may believe STELA is a must-pass bill (see 1902270018), but it’s “not clear” how the committees are going to “come together” on the legislative process.

Dish Network “doesn’t believe” Congress should sunset STELA, as about 870,000 people depend on the distant signal license mandated under the law, said Senior Counsel-Regulatory Affairs Alison Minea. That’s “a number that legislators will pay attention to” as they consider whether to renew. Revisiting the Local Choice Act is “at least worth continuing to discuss” during this reauthorization round because it proposes an “interesting construct” that would remove the distributor as the “middle man” in negotiating rates, she said.

Public Knowledge generally favored making the core elements of STELA permanent and would favor a “clean reauthorization” this time absent a bid to use the process for a wholesale revision of video market laws, said Senior Counsel John Bergmayer. “If I were looking to reform the whole video marketplace,” a final bill would “probably look very different,” he said. “Do you just want to let this expire without making the other changes, which are politically very difficult?” If “there were going to be a whole bunch of bells and whistles attached to” a renewal that include “things that I would support, then all of a sudden I’d be in favor of attaching bells and whistles,” Bergmayer said. “That usually seems to be unlikely.”