Congress should reallocate the 700 MHz D-block to public safety as part of a debt limit agreement next week, said Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, I-Conn. He spoke Wednesday at a committee hearing on emergency communications, as Congress continued to wrangle over reducing the deficit and raising the debt ceiling. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., proposed giving public safety $7 billion and the D-block in a debt proposal earlier this week (CD July 27 p2). The Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday that the Reid plan would cost much less than the Senate Commerce Committee’s proposed Spectrum Act (S-911).
Spectrum legislation to authorize voluntary FCC incentive auctions for broadcast spectrum appears to have become inextricably enmeshed with the debate over raising the debt ceiling. With no clear path in sight for compromise between President Barack Obama and Republicans in Congress, industry and government officials said Tuesday it’s unclear whether the debt reconciliation will emerge as the key lever for getting the commission the auction authority it seeks as part of the National Broadband Plan. Broadcasters said a debt limit amendment unveiled late Monday by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., could hurt the industry.
Sprint Nextel’s fight with AT&T and T-Mobile over the GSM carriers’ proposed combination led to increased spending on lobbying for all three carriers in Q2, according to quarterly lobbying reports released this week. The fight over the extent to which LightSquared’s planned terrestrial system will disrupt GPS signals also continued to be a boon to the lobbying industry. Google, Facebook and other Internet companies continued to expand their Washington presence, while major telecom associations maintained spending consistent with 2010 levels.
The $6.5 billion in deficit reduction estimated by the Congressional Budget Office for Senate spectrum legislation (S-911) failed to win over at least two of four Commerce Committee Republicans who voted against the measure in markup. However, a recent statement by Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., may imply that Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, is reconsidering her opposition. Meanwhile, lobbyists are debating the accuracy of the CBO estimate Wednesday that S-911 would reduce net direct spending by $6.5 billion from 2012 to 2021 (CD July 21 p1).
Senate public safety spectrum legislation could join other bills in a deal on the national debt, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Wednesday. “Since [S-911] brings in net revenues, we have a chance to put it together with other pieces of legislation in one of the packages that’s coming forward,” he told a news conference. “Building consensus” is the top remaining obstacle to passing S-911 in the Senate, said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. Early conversations with Republican senators have “gone very, very well, so I'm optimistic that we will have the coalition that we need at the end of the day,” she said. The Senate “may not do it as part of the debt package,” Gillibrand said: “There may be other ways to do this,” including “an up-or-down vote.” The bill’s Senate supporters have talked to Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., about why the bill matters “and we'll certainly get to it” on the floor “as soon as we can,” Gillibrand said. “Obviously, everything is focused on the debt ceiling. So, I think once we complete that work we can then look to other bills.” Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., hinted that a Commerce Committee Republican who voted no at the committee’s markup may vote yes on the floor. The markup vote was 21-4, “and I think if it were to reach the floor it would be 22-3,” he said.
The top senator on antitrust urged regulators to block AT&T’s proposed acquisition of T-Mobile. “To replace the AT&T phone monopoly of the last century with a near-duopoly of AT&T and Verizon today would be harmful to consumers, contrary to antitrust law and not in the public interest under communications law,” said Senate Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman Herb Kohl, D-Wis., in a letter Wednesday to Attorney General Eric Holder and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. In a separate letter the same day, Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers, D-Mich., and Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., urged the FCC and DOJ to scrutinize the deal closely.
An AT&T/T-Mobile hearing in the Senate Communications Subcommittee is likely but not scheduled, Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass., told us Tuesday. “We probably have to have a hearing, but I'm not certain [and] we haven’t set a date,” Kerry said. “A merger of that size and that complexity probably needs to be heard.” Earlier that day, Sprint Nextel and other merger opponents said they would accept nothing less than a full denial of the deal. “There’s absolutely no set of conditions that’s going to recreate the T-Mobile brand,” said Sprint Government Affairs Director Trey Hanbury. T-Mobile will more than survive if the deal is blocked, because it would get a $6 billion breakup free from AT&T, Hanbury said. Consumers Union sees no condition that could remedy the harms that would result from the transaction, said the group’s policy counsel Parul Desai. Conditions can be difficult to enforce and expire after some time, she added. Conditions would only keep industry competitors on “life support” until AT&T decides to “pull the plug,” agreed Rural Cellular Association vice president Tim Donovan. National Hispanic Media Coalition Vice President Jessica Gonzalez said she understands but does not agree with other civil rights groups who support the merger. AT&T and T-Mobile are strong on promoting diversity in their workforces, and many minority groups are close allies with unions who support the deal, Gonzalez said. But in the “big picture,” the merger will eliminate many jobs for minorities due to redundancies, she said. Responding to claims by unions that Sprint doesn’t support unions and has outsourced employees, Hanbury said, “Sprint’s not the one on trial.” Sprint CEO Dan Hesse has said workers may unionize if they want, Hanbury said. And the company only outsourced one wireline call center, 17 years ago, he said. AT&T fired off a blog post the same morning to defend its deal. “You don’t need to look back 40 years to find evidence of AT&T’s commitment to jobs, diversity and community involvement,” the company said.
Spectrum auctions could be a major part of Commerce committees’ savings plans to meet goals set by a deficit reduction plan released Tuesday by the bipartisan “Gang of Six” senators. The proposal, endorsed Tuesday by President Barack Obama, would direct the committees to find $11 billion for deficit reduction within six months, according to an executive summary of the plan. The proposal set up a two-step legislative process, in which there would be immediate cuts totaling $500 billion, followed by a process in which Commerce and other congressional committees would find further savings.
The House Judiciary Committee likely won’t vote until next week on a data retention bill related to child pornography (HR-1981), a committee spokeswoman said Monday. Although the bill is listed on the committee’s agenda for a two-day markup Wednesday and Thursday, the committee “will not make it to HR-1981” by Wednesday, the spokeswoman said. A vote could happen Thursday, “but most likely it will be pushed to next week,” she said. The bill that will be marked up is expected to differ from the version that was introduced, a wireless industry lobbyist said. Talks are continuing between committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, and the wireless industry, the lobbyist said. Smith said at a hearing last week that he would reconsider an exemption in the bill for wireless providers (WID July 13 p1).
Republican candidates received more than Democrats in political action committee contributions from the communications industry in the early part of the 2011-2012 election cycle. The Communications and Electronics sector has made $3.2 million in federal contributions, and 57 percent of the contributions have gone to the GOP, said the Center for Responsive Politics, citing July 5 data from the Federal Election Commission. That’s a reversal from the 2009-2010 cycle, when the sector spent 53 percent of nearly $25 million raised on Democrats. A spokesman for the center cautioned that only some PACs have filed data for April and May.