Four Democratic senators pushed public safety legislation by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., at a news conference with Rockefeller Tuesday morning. A bipartisan draft of the comprehensive spectrum legislation written by Rockefeller and Ranking Member Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, circulated Friday and the committee may vote on it at a scheduled May 25 markup (CD May 17 p1). At an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation lunch later in the day, National Broadband Plan architect Blair Levin said he wished legislators were not tying voluntary incentive auctions to the public safety network effort.
The Senate is moving faster than the House to finish legislation to build a nationwide interoperable public safety network. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and Ranking Member Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, late Friday circulated a bipartisan draft bill. Committee aides told the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officers Summit Monday that they're pushing hard to pass a bill before the 10th anniversary of 9/11. But a GOP aide for the House Commerce Committee said it will be difficult to pass a bill in that timeframe.
Approving the AT&T/T-Mobile deal would be a “historic mistake,” Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., told FCC commissioners at a House Communications Subcommittee hearing Friday on commission process reform. Other subcommittee members touched only lightly on AT&T’s plan to buy T-Mobile. Many debated more generally whether FCC conditions on transactions should be specific to the given deal.
The FTC should have sole authority over consumer privacy, Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., told us in an interview Friday. She previewed her speech scheduled for Thursday at the Telecommunications Industry Association conference in Dallas. Blackburn said she plans legislation later this year to remove the FCC’s authority over privacy by repealing Section 222 and 631 of the Communications Act.
Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., wants public safety legislation passed this June, well ahead of the 10th anniversary of 9/11, Rockefeller said in a telephone conference with reporters Thursday. The Senate Commerce Committee chairman expressed optimism that he'd soon have a bipartisan bill with Ranking Member Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas. Hutchison “wants this to happen,” he said. “It’s going to be our bill.” No bill is easy to pass now, and with Congress recessing in August there’s not much time left to act, Rockefeller said. But he thinks it will happen if supporters can get more lawmakers talking about the bill, he said. Unfortunately the spectrum issue is not a “sexy topic” for all legislators, said former Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials President Dick Mirgon, also on the call. But it’s a “very sexy topic” for public safety, Rockefeller said. Rockefeller said his bill is “fully paid for” and “won’t cost the taxpayer a dime.” Citing FCC and White House estimates, Rockefeller said it would cost $11 billion to $13 billion to build the public safety network, and voluntary incentive auctions would raise $28 billion. That leaves some money left over to keep the public safety network up to date, and about $9 billion to $10 billion for budget deficit reduction, Rockefeller said. The deficit reduction piece should make the bill attractive for Republicans, particularly in the House where the GOP has the majority, he said. Rockefeller said he has had positive talks with NAB President Gordon Smith. Smith “relaxes when he hears the word ‘voluntary'” in conjunction with incentive auctions, Rockefeller said. “Nobody has to turn back the spectrum but it is in the public interest for them to do so.” The spectrum bill will specifically require that rural areas must be covered, Rockefeller said: “Am I a little bit sensitive about that, coming from West Virginia? Yes I am.”
The House Judiciary Committee approved legislation extending three provisions of the Patriot Act expiring May 27. In a markup Thursday, the committee voted on partisan lines 22-13 to approve HR-1800. The bill would extend by six years provisions on roving wiretaps and Section 215 orders to obtain “any tangible thing,” and permanently extend a “lone wolf” provision. The committee shot down a plethora of amendments offered by Democrats. One by Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., would have required roving wiretap targets to be described with greater detail in order to avoid surveillance of innocents. But Rep. Tom Marino, R-Pa., said that would make it easier for terrorists to conceal their identities. Marino also called it “a solution in search of a problem” because he said there’s been no evidence of problems with the current roving wiretap provision. Johnson also offered an amendment to prevent collection of location information from cellphones and other electronic devices belonging to U.S. citizens not suspected of terrorist activities. But Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., said the issue was unrelated to the legislation at hand and should be discussed at “another time and place.” The Senate Judiciary Committee in March approved a bill (S-193) to extend the expiring provisions by three years.
The House Communications Subcommittee is eying a wide array of FCC reforms, according to a majority staff memo that circulated among lobbyists this week. The subcommittee has a hearing Friday morning. All five commissioners were scheduled to testify. A subcommittee spokeswoman told us that departing Commissioner Meredith Baker has cancelled. Some of the GOP proposals would limit the FCC’s ability to make new regulations, while others are said to be designed to speed up and make more transparent FCC rulemaking. In a separate memo, subcommittee Democrats warned that some proposals could be problematic.
The GAO slammed NTIA’s spectrum planning and management of federal spectrum as lacking “governmentwide focus and accountability.” In a report released Thursday, the GAO urged NTIA to develop an updated strategic plan for management of federal spectrum. “Lacking an overall strategic vision, NTIA cannot ensure that spectrum is being used efficiently by federal agencies,” it said. “The GAO report underlines the urgency for Congress to focus immediately on spectrum policy,” said House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Henry Waxman, D-Calif.
States could not impose new discriminatory taxes on multichannel video programming distribution services under HR-1804 introduced Tuesday by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis. The proposed law wouldn’t cover taxes related to “the acquisition of a property right or other item or service of value that is paid directly or indirectly to any State or local taxing authority,” the bill said. The law wouldn’t apply retroactively to taxes imposed before Jan. 1, 2011. The bill was referred to the Judiciary Committee, where Sensenbrenner is a senior member. Ranking Member John Conyers, D-Mich., and Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, cosponsored the measure. DirecTV and Dish Network supported the bill in a joint statement Wednesday. “This bipartisan legislation will protect consumers and promote competition by preventing the imposition of discriminatory taxes on satellite television and other innovative competitors to cable television,” the companies said. More than 20 states have proposed taxes, and the cable industry has lobbied for raising taxes on satellite households,” Dish and DirecTV said. “Big Cable has made it clear that it is willing to harm consumers -- even their own -- to gain an edge over their competition; this legislation will stop them from doing so.” Dish and DirecTV’s “effort to call out ‘victim’ in this case is nothing more than cover for an effort to maintain a distinct advantage over their competitors that they enjoy under federal law, and to prevent states from rationalizing their tax systems to achieve parity, including downward tax parity,” an NCTA spokesman said. Non-satellite video providers pay “significantly more in taxes” than DBS, because satellite benefits from a “loophole” in the 1996 Telecom Act preempting any local taxation on DBS, the NCTA spokesman said. He said the Sensenbrenner bill is an attempt to mandate DBS’s “competitive advantage.”
"Four competitors are better than three,” Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman Herb Kohl, D-Wis., said Wednesday at a hearing on AT&T’s proposed T-Mobile purchase. The number could soon fall to two if the deal is approved, he said. Subcommittee members from both parties raised concerns about the deal, though Republicans appeared more open to AT&T and T-Mobile’s argument that the deal would improve wireless service for consumers. But CEOs from competitors Sprint Nextel and Cellular South raised the specter of a resurrected “Ma Bell."