CONGRESS AIMS TO FIX ‘BROKEN’ FCC NEXT YEAR
Congress will attempt to fix a “broken” FCC next year, 2 senior Hill staffers told a Public Law Institute conference Thurs. A bill by Senate Commerce Committee Chmn. McCain (R- Ariz.) and ranking Democrat Hollings (S.C.), S-1264, already has cleared that committee, and the House Commerce Committee will be playing catch-up, said Howard Waltzman, telecom counsel for House Commerce Committee Chmn. Tauzin (R-La.). Kevin Kayes, Democratic staff dir. for the Senate Commerce Committee, said he could envision as a follow-up in the next Congress an attempt to rewrite the Telecom Act. That would be popular in this town, he said: “I think there’s a tremendous interest by lobbyists and lawyers and everybody to do a new Act because it’s a huge amount of business.”
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“I think there is consensus on the frustration with the FCC’s process,” Waltzman said: “I think it’s pretty safe to say the process is broken.” Among the problems he cited were “the lack of timelines and shot clocks” on FCC proceedings, which he said “sometimes are taking years.” He also said “I think a lot of people scratch their heads at the notion that no more than 2 commissioners can meet at a time in a sunset period.” Noting the Senate “is ahead of us,” he said “we hope to report out a bill next year” that addresses concerns with FCC procedures. Kayes cited the reporting of S-1264 but said “we need to do more work.”
A more complicated issue is addressing how the Telecom Act may be failing, and what can be done to address it, Waltzman and Kayes agreed. With the Act’s 8th anniversary approaching, Waltzman defended the bill as a whole, while adding: “I think in retrospect it would have been great if we could have created a separate, distinct definition for broadband services, and a clear regulatory or, our preference, deregulatory classification for it.” Kayes also defended the Act, adding “a lot of the problems have come with the implementation of the Act.”
“There may come a time when we need to change the Act and update it,” Kayes said, but several factors will delay such a Hill effort for a few years. One, he said, is that after this Congress, McCain is likely to step down from atop Commerce due to committee term limits, and Hollings will have retired. That will mean Sens. Stevens (R-Alaska) and Inouye (D-Hawaii) will be the 2 senior senators on that committee, and with everyone knowing a change is coming, “it’s hard for Senators McCain and Hollings to lay the groundwork on this.” Another factor for delay, he said, is that convergence and new technologies still are just emerging. Voice and video over the Internet threaten the existing regulatory structure, he said, but still are nascent industries: “I think the Internet is going to transform the way we regulate and the way we view communications services, but I think that’s going to take a very long time.” Kayes said the FCC could continue to handle those issues for another 3-4 years without new legislation to guide it.
Creating a spectrum relocation fund to encourage federal agencies to free spectrum for new services is a priority, Waltzman and Kayes agreed. Both said legislation could be on President Bush’s desk for signature if not for what Waltzman called a “poison pill amendment” to the bill reported out of the Senate Commerce Committee, an amendment opposed by McCain and Hollings. Waltzman described the bill as “trying to exempt [Northpoint] from having to go to auction to bid for a certain chunk of spectrum.” Kayes said the amendment was preventing the bill from being taken up on the Senate floor. Waltzman said “it’s critical this bill gets enacted so we can move forward with auctions for 3rd-generation services,” particularly for the 1710-1755 MHz and 2110-2155 MHz bands.
Another priority item is E-911 legislation, they agreed. The House has passed a bill that would help counties and states adopt location-sensitive equipment. Waltzman cited a recent abduction of a young woman in N.D., pointing out that “she didn’t have Phase 2 technology in her cellphone,” and the dispatcher wouldn’t have been able to read it if she had. Kayes said the House measure was “a good bill as far as it goes,” but said Hollings “may make another run” next year at an effort from the last Congress to “set up a pot of money from spectrum auctions” to fund E-911 adoption.
Other issues: (1) The Satellite Home Viewer Improvement Act (SHVIA) expires next year. Kayes said “what we have to do is extend the distant signals licensing,” and he said there would be an effort to increase copyright fees. “This bill could become a magnet for other types of satellite issues and broadcasting issues,” he said, “but I don’t think it will” because it has become so difficult to move legislation in the Senate that isn’t narrow and widely supported. (2) Waltzman said of competition that “the fact that we have 6 national carriers and a number of strong regional carriers is great, but it’s not sustainable.” He predicted consolidation, a view supported by Kayes. (3) Both Waltzman and Kayes said Congress was unlikely to address the Universal Service Fund through legislation next year, although House Telecom Subcommittee Chmn. Upton (R-Mich.) might have more hearings. However, Kayes said: “I think we do need to change the law… We need to broaden the base; we need to have more people pay in; we need to develop a distribution that’s fair.”
Waltzman and Kayes agreed that it was difficult to move legislation without bipartisan support, and Kayes said that in his 17 years on the Hill he never had seen more partisanship: “We seem to be more polarized than ever.” He said typically in an election year, the process hardened around June or July of that year, but in this Congress it’s happening earlier. “I think what that means,” he said, “is we're not going to pass a lot of legislation.”