The White House estimated that it can raise nearly $28 billion from spectrum sales, including voluntary incentive auctions of broadcasters’ spectrum, but the budget it released Monday gives little detail on how it arrived at the figure. President Barack Obama’s fiscal 2012 budget proposed legislation providing authority for voluntary incentive auctions and estimated that spectrum auctions, “along with other measures to enable more efficient spectrum management,” will produce $27.8 billion over the next 10 years. The budget will face scrutiny particularly from House Republicans, who want to spend about $100 billion less in fiscal 2011 than Obama, said a telecom lobbyist.
Adam Bender
Adam Bender, Deputy Managing Editor for Privacy Daily. Bender leads a team of journalists and reports on state privacy legislation, rulemaking and litigation. In previous roles at Communications Daily, he covered telecom and internet policy in the states, Congress and at the FCC. He has won awards for his reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), Specialized Information Publishers Association (SIPA) and the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing (SABEW). Bender studied print journalism at American University and is the author of multiple dystopian sci-fi novels. Keep up to date with Bender by reading his blog and following him on social media including Bluesky, Mastodon and LinkedIn.
A push to give the 700 MHz D-block to public safety gained steam Thursday. Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King, R-N.Y., introduced bipartisan legislation (HR-607) with Ranking Member Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and five others. President Barack Obama called for D-block reallocation in a speech the same day. (See separate report in this issue.) But key members of the House Commerce Committee said they support a commercial D-block auction.
House Republicans aren’t on a “quest” to take back broadband stimulus money already obligated, said Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore. He has a draft bill (CD Feb 10 p7) to speed the return of unused and misused money provided under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. After a hearing on the draft Thursday, Walden told reporters his goal is to set up “safeguards” to ensure that problems with broadband stimulus programs are found and to hasten the return of money to the U.S. Treasury.
A draft House bill on broadband stimulus spending would take away NTIA’s discretion to decide when to take back grants provided under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The draft bill by Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., also would speed delivery of reclaimed funds to the U.S. Treasury. But committee Democrats asked in a Democratic Commerce Committee staff memo circulated Wednesday among lobbyists why the bill is necessary.
Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile urged lawmakers to focus on “substance” when deciding how best to build a national wireless broadband network for public safety. In a Monday briefing, the No. 3 and 4 carriers previewed a new white paper showing how spectrum sharing would meet public safety’s needs if the government auctions the 700 MHz D-block. The carriers say they would buy the spectrum and negotiate sharing arrangements with public safety. The companies’ effort met a setback earlier this month when President Barack Obama endorsed a direct reallocation of the D-block to public safety.
House Republicans are preparing a bill to increase oversight of the broadband stimulus program under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. In a hearing notice circulated Thursday, Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., said he plans to circulate a draft bill before a hearing Thursday about Recovery Act broadband spending. The draft bill “would increase accountability for this spending to return unused or reclaimed broadband stimulus funds to the U.S. Treasury,” Walden said. The hearing is at 10 a.m., in Room 2322, Rayburn House Office Building. Also Thursday, the House Oversight Committee plans hearing on “regulatory impediments to job creation.” The hearing is 9:30 a.m. in HVC 210, Capitol Visitors Center. In December and January, the committee’s Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., sent NAB, USTelecom and other industry groups letters asking which current and proposed federal regulations would harm job growth. He plans to make the responses and his analysis public by Friday, he said last month (CD Jan 25 p8).
The Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bipartisan measure designed to speed up the patent system. The committee voted 15-0 on S-23. Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, voted present. The committee delayed a vote on a separate bill by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., to extend until December 2013 three provisions of the Patriot Act scheduled to expire Feb. 28.
Facebook’s plan to release users’ addresses and cellphone numbers to third parties is raising eyebrows on Capitol Hill. House Commerce Committee members Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Joe Barton, R-Texas, raised questions in a letter Wednesday to company CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “Facebook needs to protect the personal information of its users to ensure that Facebook doesn’t become Phonebook,” Markey said in a statement. The lawmakers asked Facebook to specify what information would be shared and whether any has been shared previously. They also asked why Facebook decided to suspend and then reactivate the sharing program and whether users opting in to sharing could later opt out. Markey and Barton asked for responses by Feb. 23. Facebook believes “there is tremendous value in giving people the freedom and control to take information they put on Facebook with them to other websites,” said a spokesman for the company. “We enable people to share this information only after they explicitly authorize individual applications to access it.” Facebook designed the system with “a number of privacy experts,” it said. “Following the rollout of this new feature, we heard some feedback and agree that there may be additional improvements we could make. Great people at the company are working on that and we look forward to sharing their progress soon.”
NTIA must soon convince a Congress concerned about federal spending to pay millions of dollars so the agency can conduct oversight of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s $4.7 billion Broadband Technology Opportunities Program. In December, the lame-duck Congress passed a continuing resolution increasing NTIA’s budget by about $20 million to $40.6 million, in part to pay for BTOP oversight. The resolution expires March 4. With one month to go and the GOP-controlled House looking for budget cuts, some fiscal conservatives are looking at NTIA.
The Senate Commerce Committee will have a hearing on public safety spectrum “very soon,” but no date has been set, said a Senate staffer. Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., told reporters Tuesday after a Democratic policy lunch in the Senate that he doesn’t know how quickly he can move the bill through the committee, “but it’s going to move. … It’s huge.” Rockefeller said he hasn’t talked with House Commerce Committee leaders about his bill. Last year Democrats and Republicans on the House committee supported a commercial auction of the D-block. “But look, the president wasn’t originally for” reallocation, and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski “originally was not for it,” Rockefeller said. Now “everybody’s for it,” and “it’s going to be a happy ending,” he added. Rockefeller said he met last week with auction supporter T-Mobile immediately before the White House endorsed reallocation. He didn’t relate what was said.