Barton Says Committee Won’t Make Sept. 16 DTV Deadline
House Commerce Committee Chmn. Barton (R-Tex.) hopes to put DTV legislation on a “fast track” behind concerns about interoperability during Hurricane Katrina, but the crisis will make it impossible to meet the Sept. 16 budget reconciliation deadline that would include a DTV measure, he told us Wed. He made his comments after a full-day hearing on the impact of the hurricane focusing mainly on oil prices and emergency response times. The committee put together a discussion draft in May and a mark-up is expected to be scheduled for some time in the next 2 weeks, sources told us.
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House Telecom Subcommittee Chmn. Upton (R-Mich.) questioned the FCC about interoperability problems in light of the committee’s DTV bill. “It is my understanding that public safety agencies weren’t able to communicate with each other,” Upton said.
The FCC found that the critical problem was lack of power, responded Kenneth Moran, dir.-Office of Homeland Security in the FCC Enforcement Bureau. “In the first days after the hurricane, most of the infrastructure was not working because of lack of power for the carriers,” he said. Other significant problems were security issues and lack of fuel and the inability to get fuel to backup generators. The Commission worked closely with industry, federal agencies and FCC staff to coordinate response. But he acknowledged interoperability problems: “Clearly, that is not an acceptable situation.” He said the Commission will keep working to solve the problems.
The breakdown in telecom services was directly related to inability to get fuel to generators, said Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who addressed the committee by teleconference. “When you lose power, your telecom systems fall down,” he said. He praised the relief workers for responding as quickly as they could and utilities and phone companies for getting people back on line. “The telephone companies have really humped it to get service back,” he said.
Once the flood waters recede, BellSouth told the committee, its biggest immediate need will be safe access to its network facilities to make repairs. The company had to have armed escorts of employees when there were widespread gunfire and looting, BellSouth CTO Bill Smith said. It will take months to rebuild the damage, Smith said, and the govt. needs to recognize that the cost will be “significant” -- $400-$600 million. “We will be expected to rebuild without knowing what our ultimate demand will be,” he said.
Rep. Watson (D-Cal.) urged Congress to move forward on the DTV bill in light of the hurricane. Emergency responders need the spectrum now held by broadcasters to improve their communications, she said, as she interrupted a New America Foundation panel discussion on Capitol Hill. The DTV legislation will provide an enormous opportunity to boost broadband deployment as billions of dollars of prime public airwaves are returned to the govt., she said. “I have relatives down there [New Orleans]. We know one was sent to a hospital, but we can’t find her. Have we not learned our lessons from 9/11?”
The hearing was the first that Barton plans to hold on the hurricane’s effect on energy, health and telecom systems. “Whatever you need from the federal government, if it’s within the jurisdiction of this committee, we are going to do everything we can to make it happen sooner rather than later and larger rather than smaller,” he told Barbour, adding that he’s extending the same offer to other states ravaged by the hurricane.