Much Talk, Little Hill Action Seen for Public Safety Issues in September
September is expected to be busy for public safety issues in Washington, but time and funding concerns are working against passing any legislation this year, said public safety and telecom industry officials. Legislation to set up a $70 million NTIA grant competition for public safety communications devices (CD July 30 p5) may have a better shot than bills involving the D-block, they said. The House and Senate have introduced nearly identical bills, HR-5907 and S-3731, sponsored by Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., and Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., and neither has generated opposition.
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There will be much activity in the public safety space this month, predicted National Emergency Numbers Association (NENA) President Brian Fontes. The Senate Commerce Committee may have a hearing (CD Aug 25 p2) and the administration is taking part in a public safety broadband summit Sept. 21-22. The Commerce Department had a meeting on public safety issues last Wednesday. Meanwhile, the FCC is expected to vote on an order on wireless-911 accuracy and a notice of inquiry about VoIP 911 at the commission’s Sept. 23 meeting. And San Francisco Bay Area officials plan to detail public safety network buildout plans at a press conference Sept. 10.
With what is expected to be only a four-week Congressional session starting Sept. 13, time is short to finish any public safety legislation. “To get anything passed right now is a little bit of a hurdle,” said T-Mobile Vice President Tony Russo. The politics of getting a public safety bill through “are going to be challenging in any environment,” but especially in an elections year, said Telecommunications Industry Association President Grant Seiffert. “Congress has a lot of issues before it,” and public safety issues may not be at the top of every member’s list, Fontes said. A telecom lobbyist said the word from the Hill is that very few if any telecom bills will get through before year end.
The bills with the best chance of passage this year are “those bills that have already been introduced in the House and the Senate,” said Fontes. The devices legislation by Harman and Warner meets that requirement. It identifies a funding source and isn’t controversial, he said. There are also E-911 bills in both chambers of Congress, but the source of funding is unclear, Fontes said. Meanwhile, legislators have announced or introduced four approaches to dealing with the D-block, and only a draft bill by House Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., seems to mesh with the FCC’s recommendation in the National Broadband Plan. The differences of opinion as well as budgetary scoring issues make passing anything on the D-block especially tricky, Russo said. “It’s going to be tough."
Warner and Harman have partnered closely on the device legislation, a Senate aide said. Harman has cited support from APCO, NENA, the Fraternal Order of Police, Sprint Nextel and the Rural Cellular Association. And the bills are bipartisan, the aide said. The devices bill would speed deployment of public safety radios, said the Congressional Research Service in a report dated Sept. 1. “Public safety operations would benefit from the radio-development initiative regardless of the eventual assignment of the D Block.” The Harman and Warner bills “are more narrowly focused on a critical initial step on the long road to assuring that a nationwide, interoperable network is put in place for public safety communications: the radios.” The bills are similar, except the Senate version would cap the amount of money that could be used to administer the program, CRS noted.
APCO helped Harman develop her bill after the public safety group made the proposed $70 million grant program a top priority for this Congress, an APCO spokeswoman said. “We are meeting with Senator Warner’s office to discuss his companion bill and will likely come out in formal support of it very shortly as well.” Russo said “there seems to be no real opposition” to giving grants for public safety devices. That may give it “a little more chance” of passing quickly than the D-block bills,” he said.
There’s a possible hang up for the devices legislation: Its use of a “pay for” that also appears in several other pending bills, the Senate aide said. The device legislation would offset the grant competition’s cost by extending the FCC’s authority to auction spectrum to October 2015 from October 2012, which would allow the government to count the extra years of possible revenue in its budget calculation. Partnerships are possible between Harman and Warner and other offices seeking to extend the FCC’s auction authority to offset costs, the aide said. “I would be very surprised” if the devices bill “gets paired with the auction authority,” said Russo. Harman and Warner could possibly strike a deal with other legislators, he said.
The D-block may still be the bigger priority for many. “Everything gets tied back to D-block,” said Seiffert. “You've got to have a D-block solution to loosen up anything else.” While APCO supports the Harman bill, the group’s spokeswoman said its top priority is to encourage passage of the bill by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., which would give public safety the D-block.