Stevens Seeking Consensus on DTV Bill That Avoids ‘Byrd Rule’

But he’s determined to keep the committee bill as clean as possible -- a goal that may be difficult as members seek to include provisions from consumer education programs on the digital transition to moving up the transition deadline. “Republicans have filed a ton of amendments, while Democrats haven’t filed that many,” a Senate source said. The reason so many amendments are being offered, he said, is frustration over the linkage of DTV with the budget process, because it severely limits consideration of other telecom issues they want to address. Stevens acknowledged the rancor during a speech at a Free Enterprise Fund luncheon Wed.: “It remains to be seen what’s going to happen tomorrow. We've had some interesting discussions and shouting matches in last couple of days about this bill.” A Senate source described a meeting between Stevens and Democrats Tues. as “heated.” “He wanted to know why we were meeting on our own,” the source said. “I think things are going to come to a head in the next few days.”

Stevens said he got approval from the Senate parliamentarian to make allocations of money in the budget DTV bill and earmark specific portions in a separate bill. The committee is working on that separate DTV bill, but it’s not likely to be ready this week. Here’s how the 2 bill plan would work: The budget bill would spend $3 billion on set-top boxes for consumers’ analog TVs that will go dark after the digital transition. The 2nd bill would specify how the program would work, including a $10 co-payment from consumers. It also assumes the boxes will cost $50, which would allow about 60 million people to receive boxes, committee staff said.

The 2nd bill also sets aside $200 million for conversion of TV translator stations from analog to digital, $250 million for enactment of an emergency alert bill that the committee plans to mark up Thurs. and $250 million to carry out E-911 grant legislation. The committee pulled from its agenda a scheduled markup of the IP-Enabled Voice Communications bill (S-1063), sponsored by Sen. Nelson (D-Fla.), to allow more time to address concerns raised by committee members, a committee spokeswoman said. The new markup date is Nov. 2.

Because of the difficulties Stevens has faced with the Byrd rule, he stripped down the draft DTV bill to 5 pages. The final shape of the bill won’t be clear until just before markup today, as deals continue to be cut with senators pressing for amendments, Senate sources said. Sen. McCain (R-Ariz.) said Tues. he plans to introduce an amendment at the markup seeking a hard transition date in 2006 or 2007 which Stevens said the CE industry can’t meet. In addition, Stevens said the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) told the Commerce Committee that an earlier hard date would reduce revenue from spectrum auctions.

Stevens said he plans to hold a hearing or meeting on the 2nd DTV bill after the budget bill is passed, if reconciliation passes. There’s still a possibility that Congress may fail to pass an overall reconciliation bill as the House struggles to make massive budget cuts that Democrats generally don’t support. If that happens, DTV legislation would have to start over as a new bill. The budget reconciliation process has been both a spur and an impediment to DTV legislation this year. The discipline of the budget process has pushed the bill further than it might have gotten otherwise, but the Byrd rule has limited the telecom provisions that can be addressed. “The Byrd rule has been strictly interpreted by the parliamentarian. It will prohibit policy issues which are not directly related to funding from being included in this bill,” Stevens said. “The parliamentarian could rule that even establishing a program for distributing set-top boxes violates the Byrd rule. We can set up the money, but we cannot say how that money would be spent.”

Stevens said he hopes to address these issues in the 2nd DTV bill: (1) Setting aside 12 MHz of spectrum for small providers. (2) Requiring those who bid at auctions to roam with small carriers upon request at commercial rates. (3) Requiring consumer education programs about the digital transition to go into effect immediately, including a provision that DTV sets be labeled properly. “I would personally like to set a date by which it would be illegal to sell any TV set that’s called digital which is not digital,” Stevens said. (4) Spelling out provisions of downconversion of analog signals and translator converter programs. (5) Preempting states such as Cal. from imposing further costs on the set-top box program. (6) Resolving multicasting. (7) Making provisions for broadcast time devoted to family and political programming.