Adam Bender

Spectrum is the subject of a House Communications Subcommittee hearing planned for next week, Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., told broadcasters Tuesday at the NAB State Leadership Conference. Telecom industry lobbyists said the hearing will happen March 10. Upton wants to design a strategy that’s a “win” for broadcasters, wireless carriers and the public “in terms of deficit reduction,” he said. “We want incentives for every one of those different players to get the job done.” Upton doesn’t know “what it’s going to look like at the end of the day,” but the hearing is step one of the process, he said.

House Commerce Committee Democrats said it’s too soon to vote on legislation to kill the FCC’s December net neutrality order. The Communications Subcommittee plans to mark up a Congressional Review Act joint resolution of disapproval at a business meeting Wednesday morning. But the committee and subcommittee’s ranking members -- California Democrats Henry Waxman and Anna Eshoo -- said they want a “legislative hearing” first. Meanwhile at the NAB State Leadership Conference, Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., predicted quick House passage of the joint resolution.

The House Judiciary Committee is expected to hold a hearing on wireless tax fairness on March 15 in the Courts Subcommittee, a telecom industry official said. The hearing is to start at 1:30 p.m., the official said. The committee didn’t respond to a request for comment.

FCC staffers met Monday to prepare for a possible government shutdown when the existing Continuing Resolution expires Friday. While House Republicans and Senate Democrats may soon agree to a short-term extension, the threat of a later shutdown lingers, said lobbyists. A shutdown could jeopardize RUS and NTIA broadband projects, delay FCC work on CenturyLink’s purchase of Qwest, and create problems for those with expiring spectrum licenses.

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., hired Greg Orlando as his telecom counsel, a spokeswoman for the senator said Friday. Ensign is ranking member of the Senate Communications Subcommittee. Orlando previously worked for former FCC commissioner Deborah Tate and former Rep. Mike Ferguson, R-N.J. He most recently was communications policy specialist for the NTIA, handling legal compliance and policy development for the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The FCC must not forget rural areas as it seeks to revamp the Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation, former Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said in an interview Friday. Dorgan, who recently joined the Arent Fox law firm as senior policy adviser, said Congress has worked a long time on USF but “doesn’t seem to be getting it done.” The Senate had worked on the issue, but has shown less interest “the last couple of years,” he said. “The question is, what will the FCC do as it rethinks” USF and intercarrier compensation, “and will it pay as much attention as is necessary to avoid having a digital divide in the future with regard to advanced services?” Dorgan is “tinkering around with an op-ed piece” about USF overhaul discussing the “dramatic changes that have occurred since I've been in Congress and still the urgent need not only for universal service but intercarrier compensation funding” for small telcos in rural areas, he said. “I come from a town of 300 people, and so I've always been concerned that whatever happens … there needs to be an understanding of the buildout of advanced services and the financial capability to do that in the rural areas.” Most high-speed broadband buildout goes to “the biggest cities where there’s the largest income streams,” Dorgan said. But the original idea behind universal service was that a telephone in a rural area is just as important as one in an urban location, he said. “That concept has to continue through the development of these advanced services. Otherwise you will leave a lot of parts of the country behind economically.”

Broadcaster participation need not be high to raise nearly $28 billion from voluntary incentive auctions, said Phil Weiser, National Economic Council senior adviser to the director for technology and innovation. The White House estimated in its FY 2012 budget that the wireless effort could raise $27.8 billion. At a New America Foundation event Wednesday on the Hill, Weiser and other government officials acknowledged that the auctions and much else in Obama’s wireless plan rely on Congressional action. Meanwhile, speakers from industry and public interest groups urged government not to lose focus on spectrum sharing as it moves forward on auctions.

The Obama administration won’t stand for a cut to Rural Utilities Service broadband grants in the House continuing resolution passed over the weekend, a spokesman for the agency said. The resolution would eliminate the $13 million RUS Community Connect program, which gives grants for building broadband infrastructure and setting up community centers offering free public access to broadband. The House approved the cut in a voice vote Friday night on an amendment by Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah. The RUS spokesman referred us to a Feb. 15 statement by the White House that “the Administration does not support deep cuts that will undermine our ability to out-educate, out-build, and out-innovate the rest of the world.” President Barack Obama will veto any continuing resolution that “undermines critical priorities or national security through funding levels or restrictions, contains earmarks, or curtails the drivers of long-term economic growth and job creation while continuing to burden future generations with deficit,” the White House said. Matheson said Friday that he wanted to cut even more than the House approved. “Cuts may be painful, they may be unpopular, but given what we are up against, they are necessary,” he said. The House resolution also included provisions targeting net neutrality rules, public broadcasting and the FCC’s chief diversity officer (CD Feb 22 p1). Congress must pass a continuing resolution by March 4 to keep the federal government running. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Tuesday he will bring to the floor next week a “clean” measure that extends government funding at current levels for 30 days.

A bill by Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., would set a schedule for FCC voluntary incentive auctions of broadcaster spectrum. S-415 was introduced Thursday night and referred to the Commerce Committee. Warner’s Spectrum Optimization Act would authorize the auctions and require the FCC to start them within two years of the bill’s enactment. Within 180 days, the commission would be required to write rules “for the conduct of auctions of licensed spectrum that is voluntarily relinquished by a licensee for assignment of new initial licenses subject to new service rules or for other purposes, in which a portion of the auction proceeds are shared with such relinquishing licensees, consistent with the public interest in maximizing utilization of the spectrum.” The bill would require FCC rules to identify the initial spectrum bands eligible for incentive auctions, minimize the cost to taxpayers of spectrum transitions, and set a maximum revenue-sharing figure, “unless the establishment of such threshold would increase the amount of spectrum cleared or would increase the net revenue from the auction of such spectrum.” The measure aims to provide the auctions with a clear path and a time frame for action and to minimize costs to taxpayers, said a spokesman for Warner. The bill’s provisions could be worked into broader spectrum legislation, he said. The legislation doesn’t deal with public safety specifically, but it wouldn’t preclude the use of auction proceeds for the public safety network, he said. Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., of the Senate Commerce Committee has filed a bill that would use proceeds for the purpose. At a hearing of the committee last week (CD Feb 17 p5), Warner said he, unlike Rockefeller, supports an auction of the 700 MHz D-block.

The FCC’s net neutrality order became a small part of the larger federal budget game after the House Thursday night passed an amendment to the Continuing Resolution sponsored by Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore. Breaking mostly along party lines, the House voted 244-181 to approve the amendment. It would ban FCC implementation of net neutrality rules until the Continuing Resolution expires Sept. 30. A final vote on the CR was expected late Friday. The House also passed an amendment to cut the agency’s chief diversity officer. That position has been held by Mark Lloyd, who drew heat from the political right for what some thought was support of the fairness doctrine, which he said he never backed.