Thune Eyes Likelihood of Floor Roll Call Vote for Mobile Now, Combined With Other Stalled Items

Thune reintroduced Mobile Now Tuesday, the first day of the new session and again with the backing of ranking member Bill Nelson, D-Fla. (see 1701030047). The bill cleared Commerce unanimously early last year and the committee sought its approval on the floor through unanimous consent (UC), a process derailed over a leadership fight involving the renomination of former FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel. Rosenworcel's renomination was sent to the Senate Wednesday after inaction in the last Congress (see 1701040072 and 1701040073). Republicans never held a 60-vote majority to break a filibuster last Congress or now, and this session hold a majority of 52. Advancing legislation by a roll call vote rather than by UC also could change the scope of the legislation, opening it to amendments on the floor.

“My guess is that it’ll be challenging, probably now in this environment, to get it UC'd,” Thune said in the interview Wednesday about Mobile Now. “But we might be able to figure out, if we can get a package of bills that come out of our committee that we can put together and that we know we have 60 votes for on the floor, to be able to get some floor time to do it. We’ll see how we end up dealing with all that. But we want to get the marker out there early to let people know this is a high priority for us and that’s why we dropped the bill early.”

Thune also imagines pulling in other legislation through the markup process for such a roll call vote, such as the Improving Rural Call Quality and Reliability Act from Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., or possibly even the FCC Reauthorization Act, he told us. During panels last month, Senate Commerce telecom policy director David Quinalty had mentioned concerns about the ability to find floor time last year and having to rely only on the UC process (see 1612020035). “I think we’d have north of 60 for that on the floor, too, so we’ll see,” Thune told us of the FCC Reauthorization Act factoring into a broader Mobile Now package. “Early on, it’s more just making a commitment that Mobile Now’s a high priority.” Some observers said last month Senate Commerce should seek to wrap aspects of Mobile Now into whatever infrastructure package may develop in 2017, an ambition of President-elect Donald Trump (see 1612220020). Thune didn’t rule out the idea. “If it comes together -- we’ll see,” Thune told us of Trump’s goals. “At some point, I assume we’ll be drawn in and hopefully help collaborate on that. But at this point, we’re kind of waiting to see where they want to go.”

“There may be some other issues that come up in the course of the markup, too, that we could incorporate into a bill that we move to the floor,” Thune said. “We had a lot of telecom bills that stalled out last year on the floor, most of which were kind of wrapped up in the Rosenworcel nomination. So it would be nice to see if we could get some of those jump-started again.” He referred to a “handful” of measures, “basically a bunch of the stuff that we had introduced, moved through the committee, gotten to the floor and hoped to see action on and didn’t.”

A committee spokeswoman later told us the tech legislation that Senate Commerce moved last Congress would be a starting point, declining to name specific items. Thune “intends to consult with the committee’s members before announcing other areas for reform at this time,” she said. Other items that Senate Commerce cleared last year that failed to receive floor approval include the Developing Innovation and Growing the Internet of Things (Digit) Act, addressing IoT strategy; the Securing Access to Networks in Disasters (Sandy) Act, which dealt with emergency communications; and the Small Business Broadband Deployment Act, which would exempt small ISPs from the net neutrality order’s enhanced transparency requirements. During the Mobile Now markup last year, Thune also worked with committee members to incorporate different spectrum proposals, including a measure on unlicensed use from Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii. A Schatz spokesman didn’t comment Wednesday on his boss' plans for markup.

Speaking later to reporters, Thune said a general ambition this session is overhauling the 1996 Telecom Act, but emphasized a piecemeal approach, considering different existing bills and not mentioning the Mobile Now packaging: “I’d love to do an update, a modernization of the act. That’s probably a bit ambitious, but we’ll certainly take pieces of that. And we had a lot of unfinished business from last year -- a lot of bills that got held up in the whole Rosenworcel swirl, and I’m hoping we can bust some of those loose now that we’re into a new session of Congress.”

Telecom officials lauded Mobile Now’s return. “Competitive carriers must have access to additional valuable spectrum resources to compete and thrive in the industry, and this legislation is an important step toward addressing current deployment and infrastructure challenges,” Competitive Carriers Association President Steve Berry said. Telecommunications Industry Association Senior Vice President-Government Affairs James Reid said the measure “will help address the growing demand for connectivity, and more spectrum solutions will also be needed -- particularly to keep the U.S. competitive as nations around the world push forward with plans for next-generation wireless.” NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield lauded the reintroduction, calling the bill important.

Thune declined to offer timing guidance on a possible markup. “I’m hoping that it’ll be something that we can get moving fairly quickly,” he told us, not answering when pressed on whether there’s a chance this month or in February. “It’s hard to say. We’ve got to go through that process again.” The introduction was to “demonstrate we have a high level of interest in moving it quickly,” he said. “I’m hoping that we’ll have partners in the House because I think creating more spectrum is huge. We all know the connectivity in the country, in the world, is only going to grow, and we’ve got have additional spectrum to accommodate that. I’m hopeful at this point, at least, that we’ll not only have House-Senate bicameral but bipartisan interest in looking at legislation, in addition to other things. An FCC reauthorization [bill] is something that we passed out of our committee last year that got stalled on the floor.” He foresaw big opportunities for coordination.