Congress Won’t Rush New Broadband Policy, Aides Say
Capitol Hill aides urged patience from those seeking a Telecom Act revamp by Congress. A rewrite will happen, but Congress doesn’t want to rush it, said Danny Sepulveda, senior adviser to Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass. Other priorities next year include wireless spectrum and oversight of the broadband stimulus program, aides told a panel discussion Tuesday by the Free State Foundation.
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Before Congress can rewrite telecom laws, “there are a series of very serious policy questions that we need to answer,” Sepulveda said. David Quinalty, a Republican staffer on the Senate Commerce Committee, agreed that “sooner is not necessarily better.” Congress probably won’t agree on a net neutrality deal this year, he said. The inability to reach consensus in the past three months “on the most contentious telecom policy issue Congress has looked at in the last couple of years” shouldn’t be taken as “a sign that we're unwilling or unable to address this,” he said. Congress moves slowly, noted Tim Powderly, a senior counsel to the House Commerce Committee. “The Telecom Act of ‘96 took two or three Congresses."
Congress has “squandered” too much time debating net neutrality on the Hill and at the FCC, said Neil Fried, a Republican senior counsel on the House Commerce Committee. Policymakers should have focused this year on freeing up spectrum and revamping the Universal Service Fund, which were critical and bipartisan recommendations in the FCC National Broadband Plan, he said. But Powderly said he believes that Congress can “walk and chew gum” -- address issues like USF at the same time as net neutrality. No it can’t, replied Fried. “As much as we try to walk and chew gum at the same time, we know from the past year we just don’t."
House Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., doesn’t want to introduce a net neutrality bill without bipartisan support and stakeholder consensus, Powderly said. Waxman is “open to revisiting the issue in the lame duck” session, but if Congress can’t agree, he wants the FCC to reclassify broadband transport under Title II of the Communications Act, the House Commerce aide said. The net neutrality proposal that failed last month had support from several but not all industry and public interest groups, and Republicans refused to sign off, Powderly said. Waxman didn’t give House Republicans enough time to review and form consensus on his net neutrality proposal, said Fried. The GOP wanted Congress to tackle the question much earlier in the year, he said: “We were present” in the conversation but “were not negotiating the language” of the deal.
There’s plenty of room for compromise, “but we need to understand each others’ concerns,” Sepulveda said. “There aren’t good guys and bad guys in this situation -- there are only good and bad incentives.” The FCC has the “right and duty” to reclassify if it can provide justification, Sepulveda said. Whatever the commission decides, it won’t be “the end of Internet freedom,” he said. Republicans don’t see specific problems that would justify Title II reclassification, and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski hasn’t identified any areas besides a USF overhaul and net neutrality that would require it, said Quinalty. The FCC chairman can’t win, said Powderly. “No matter what the FCC does, they're going to get criticized … from somewhere."
Freeing up spectrum is “top priority” for Kerry next year, Sepulveda said. “The biggest obstacle” to a spectrum revamp “is the complexity of the question -- the technicality of it.” Fiscal considerations, such as how much money will be raised from auctions and who will get the proceeds, may pose other roadblocks to agreement, said Quinalty. “We're going to have to address the appropriations issue before any legislation … can really go anywhere.” Fried cited bipartisan agreement that commercial spectrum should be freed voluntarily. But working out the details on handling relocation may be complex, he said.
The House position on the public safety network remains that the commission should auction the 700 MHz D-block and give the proceeds to public safety, said Fried and Powderly. That’s in spite of recent legislation by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., that would hand over the spectrum to public safety. Kerry hasn’t taken a position, Sepulveda said. Without passage of public safety legislation, the FCC would be required by current law to auction the D-block.
Oversight of broadband grants will likely be another focus for Congress next year, Fried said. “The stimulus legislation was so rushed [that] it doesn’t provide for the actual oversight of the grants” at NTIA, he said. “There’s really a terrible concern that we've now pushed all this money out, and we're not going to see much for it.” Congress hasn’t provided NTIA money for oversight (CD Oct 12 p4). Fried wouldn’t say whether the GOP would support the additional spending. Kerry supports giving NTIA money for broadband oversight, said Sepulveda. “We will work -- hopefully cooperatively with the Republican side -- to ensure that what is a relatively small sum of money is put into place to ensure that a very large sum of money is properly administered.”