House Subcommittee Approves Amended Spectrum Inventory Bill
The NTIA and the FCC would be required to do an inventory of spectrum between 225 MHz and 3.7 GHz under an amended bill (HR-3125) approved Thursday by the House Communications Subcommittee in a unanimous vote. The panel also unanimously approved a bill (HR-3019) by Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., that would streamline moving federal users off bands to be reviewed by a three-member technical panel reporting to the agencies.
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Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., submitted a manager’s amendment to the inventory bill, which was originally sponsored by Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif. The amended bill would expand national security and public safety protections related to federal and non-federal spectrum use. It would give the agencies a year to do the inventory, up from six months in the original bill, and would require a report to Congress every two years rather than annually. It would reduce the upper limit of the spectrum range to 3.7 GHz from 10 GHz, putting it more in line with a similar bill in the Senate (S-649) that would audit spectrum from 300 MHz to 3.5 GHz. The agencies would be allowed to audit up to 10 GHz if they decide the benefits outweigh the costs. But spectrum higher than 3.7 GHz is considered less valuable for commercial use.
Spectrum legislation is “priority No. 1” for Boucher, the congressman said in an interview Thursday. Boucher believes the bills will move “very quickly” and could pass the House in February, he said. The bills likely will continue traveling together, since they're both “necessary,” bipartisan, and face no opposition, he said. “I would anticipate a full committee markup to take place the next time the full committee has a markup session.” That could happen in one to three weeks, he said. After the committee approves a bill, it typically takes about ten days to go to the floor, he said.
Subcommittee Ranking Member Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., supported the bills but warned not to “forget there is spectrum we need to address in the short term.” Policymakers must “figure out how to effectively deploy” spectrum “already in the pipeline,” including the D-block, AWS-3, AWS-2, H- block and J-block, he said.
Other Republicans asked for tweaks to the bills, to add incentives and to bolster national security protections. Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., didn’t submit an amendment, but said he wished to “explore ideas” on how to “penalize or incentivize” agencies to ensure that they clear spectrum within the one-year deadline that the Inslee bill would set. Boucher called the idea “very useful” and said they would talk about it. Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., offered a last- minute amendment that he said would improve national security provisions in the inventory bill. But he agreed with Boucher on having his proposed changes considered later by the full committee. Walden said he was alerted Wednesday night by a power company that the disclosure that the bill would require might leave smart-grid systems vulnerable to attack.
Boucher’s opening statement said his goal is to move both bills through the full committee and the House “at the earliest possible time.” Demand for spectrum is “dramatic and accelerating,” he said. “Additional spectrum for commercial wireless services will be needed, and it will be needed soon.” Inslee said his bill fits into the government’s “job creation strategy” because it could increase technology employment.
“These bills begin the process of helping free up additional spectrum for mobile broadband services,” CTIA CEO Steve Largent said. “We hope that the inventory and relocation improvement processes will precede and follow, respectively, a process to reallocate significant spectrum for advanced wireless services so that America’s wireless industry can continue to be the world’s leader.”