House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, may add spectrum auction authority to a larger spending package that’s to be voted on this week on the House floor, a Boehner spokesman told us Friday. Boehner is discussing using spectrum as a “pay-for” for a payroll tax extension, the yearly pay correction for doctors serving Medicare patients and other items in the package, the spokesman said. If the spectrum proposal goes straight to the floor, it would skip a vote by the full Commerce Committee that had also been expected for this week. The House Communications Subcommittee approved draft spectrum legislation on Thursday (CD Dec 2 p1) amid objections by Democrats.
The House Commerce Committee didn’t vote on two FCC process reform bills at a markup Wednesday. Votes were scheduled on HR-3309 and HR-3310, but the committee spent more time than expected debating other unrelated bills. Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., said votes on the FCC bills will likely be postponed until next week. The exact day hasn’t been determined, a committee spokesman said. The markup began late Tuesday with opening statements, in which Republicans took shots at the FCC for the agency’s handling of the AT&T/T-Mobile deal. “Now that the matter is under consideration by the Department of Justice and AT&T has withdrawn its petition, I question the value of the FCC moving forward until the litigation is resolved,” Upton said. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, said he was “disappointed” to hear the FCC was planning to reject the deal and had considered not allowing AT&T to withdraw its application. The FCC must “operate in a transparent and accountable manner,” Upton said. “A number of process disputes have arisen in recent years,” under chairmen from both political parties, he said. However, Ranking Member Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said the larger bill HR-3309 “would not reform the FCC but disable it.” Waxman said he supported “the purpose” of HR-3310, a smaller bill that would consolidate many FCC reports and eliminate others. “But further work is needed to improve the bill before it goes to the floor,” he said. Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., agreed process reform is needed at the FCC, but said the Republicans “go too far” in HR-3309. Dingell complained about the FCC process leading up to the agency’s net neutrality order, and their unresponsiveness to his questions about voluntary incentive spectrum auctions. But Dingell said the GOP bills had “no hope” of being taken up in the Senate.
A spectrum auction markup may happen next week in the House Communications Subcommittee, multiple telecom industry lobbyists said Tuesday. Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., had been waiting for the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction to finish its work; the super committee announced its failure Monday (CD Nov 22 p2). The Commerce Committee didn’t comment. Wireless industry groups lamented the super committee’s failure as a lost opportunity to authorize voluntary incentive auctions. “The wireless industry’s need for additional spectrum is well documented,” said CTIA Vice President Jot Carpenter. “If the supercommittee process doesn’t provide a path to addressing our need for more spectrum, then there are other vehicles available that will ensure our members can access unused or underutilized spectrum and meet consumers’ demand for wireless broadband services.” The Wireless Communications Association is disappointed in the super committee’s failure, WCA President Fred Campbell said. “Failing to adopt spectrum legislation this year would be a significant blow to mobile broadband providers.” Carpenter said in an interview he is optimistic Congress will find a vehicle for spectrum in December or early next year. But he said he doesn’t believe it’s “realistic” to attach it to an appropriations omnibus, as some have suggested, because of procedural hurdles. The spectrum legislation is not a spending bill so there is a “question of germaneness” linking it to appropriations, Carpenter said. In addition, Republicans may object to using the omnibus because the additional revenue from spectrum could be used to increase the size of the spending bill, he said. While there have been attempts, spectrum auctions historically have never made the cut on an appropriations bill, he added.
Congress could still find a way to pass spectrum legislation this year without the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, telecom industry lobbyists said. The super committee’s co-chairs said late Monday that the panel had failed to reach a deal. The House and Senate have signaled that they hope to push spectrum auction legislation forward in December through regular order or by attaching it to a must-pass vehicle like an omnibus appropriations bill. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said he'll press to get spectrum legislation passed. “Winning ideas like S.911 cannot keep falling victim to this partisan stubbornness,” he said Monday evening. “I will continue to pursue all avenues to get S.911 enacted this year."
Many broadcasters and all wireless companies are sitting out a plan (CD Oct 21 p2) by some stations to act as Internet backhaul providers for carriers, our survey of those industries found. No carrier has agreed to join the efforts of the Coalition for Free TV and Broadband, though several have expressed an interest in the technology, members said. They said the coalition has been adding some broadcasters, including the owner of five stations in North Carolina, and the operator of another 36 outlets is likely to join. Other executives and engineers who consult for the TV industry said the technology changes needed for stations to become ISPs of a sort would be expensive. They're skeptical that what they called an initiative undertaken at a late date will pick up enough momentum to either delay the auction of TV stations’ channels the FCC wants to hold or gain carrier backing.
The Senate could take up spectrum in an omnibus bill this year if the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction fails to reach a deal including spectrum, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said at a public safety press conference Tuesday. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and other lawmakers said they would support that approach. Schumer and other members of Congress urged the super committee to include D-block reallocation in its recommendations.
With the Thanksgiving deadline fast approaching for the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, observers are growing skeptical that the super committee will meet its goal of finding $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction. Democrats and Republicans on the special committee seem to agree spectrum auctions should be included, but they continue to disagree on larger, unrelated issues, Hill and industry officials said. Auctions could still make the cut in a smaller package to mitigate an automatic, across-the-board budget cut in January 2013 known as a sequester, telecom industry lobbyists said.
The Rural Cellular Association formally presented a study it commissioned, “Non-Interoperability at 700 MHz: Lower Revenues & Higher Prices,” during a meeting with Wireless Bureau staff. “The study concludes that the continuation of non-interoperability in the 700 MHz band will result in a number of negative outcomes regarding revenues and federal budget contributions from future spectrum auctions; the potential to fulfill the goal of ubiquitous mobile broadband; and competition, innovation, and pricing in the wireless market,” RCA said in a filing at the commission (http://xrl.us/bmibt4).
SILICON VALLEY -- Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., said Wednesday she wants to make sure that the zeal for raising federal revenue doesn’t prevent adding “open space for innovation” in the airwaves. The Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction is looking to spectrum auctions “to raise money for the federal government,” she noted at the Silicon Valley Wireless Symposium, organized by Joint Venture Silicon Valley. But Lofgren said she wants to make sure that when it comes to adding spectrum for broadband “not everything gets auctioned,” so unlicensed capacity is available. “We need to think about how we can incent additional efficient use of spectrum,” she added.
Chances appear very good that a spectrum sale will be part of any legislation recommended by the Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction, CEA President Gary Shapiro said in an interview on C-SPAN’s The Communicators, scheduled to be broadcast over the weekend. Shapiro was asked repeatedly about recommendations the group made in an Oct. 27 letter to the super committee (http://xrl.us/bmhuym). Shapiro said the likelihood the committee will recommend spectrum auctions is “well over 90 percent.”