Former Hill Aides Say Spectrum, Privacy May Overcome Party Politics
The split Congress could agree on spectrum and privacy matters, former Hill aides said Saturday on C-SPAN’s The Communicators. But it’s likely Senate Democrats and House Republicans will continue to butt heads on net neutrality, and it will take time to get new members comfortable with communications issues before Congress can move forward on a rewrite of the 1996 Telecom Act, they said.
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Don’t expect cooperation right away, warned Tricia Paoletta, a partner at Wiltshire and Grannis who was majority counsel for Republicans on the House Commerce Committee from 1996 to 1999. Lawmakers are still digesting the FCC’s net neutrality order, she said. “Because that was a very party-line vote out of the FCC … there’s a bit of a partisan feeling opening this Congress.” Cooperation will come “down the road,” but priority one for House Republicans is reviewing the FCC’s net neutrality order, Paoletta said.
There should be significant support for voluntary incentive auctions to free up broadcaster spectrum for use by commercial wireless, said Catherine McCullough, a lobbyist with Meadowbrook Strategic Government Relations, which represents broadcasts and wireless interests. She was a Democratic counsel for the Senate Commerce Committee 2003-2006. That’s because the auctions would mean more money for the U.S. Treasury, to reduce the deficit or to spend on other programs, McCullough said. On any legislative effort to bring more money into government, “you're going to see a lot of cooperation from a lot of different places,” she said.
Public safety spectrum legislation could move forward, because there’s agreement across party factions in the House and Senate, Paoletta said. House Homeland Security Chairman Peter King, R-N.Y., and Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller support giving public safety the 700 MHz D-block. But Democrats and Republicans in the House Commerce Committee last year supported a commercial auction of that spectrum. If King and Rockefeller push their bills forward, it will force the Commerce Committee to respond, Paoletta said.
Agreement on “baseline privacy legislation” is also possible, said McCullough. But Paoletta said she doesn’t expect it to be an early priority. McCullough said the House likely would begin with the bipartisan bill worked out last year by Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., and former Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va. But elements of a competing privacy bill by Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., may be absorbed, she said.
The House seems ready to consider a Universal Service Fund overhaul, McCullough said. She said Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., comes from a rural state and hired a major USF player to his staff in Ray Baum. (See separate story in this issue.) And Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., chose USF revamp bill sponsor Lee Terry, R-Neb., as the subcommittee’s vice-chairman, she added. In the Senate, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., could emerge as a key USF player because he’s a fiscal conservative who opposes government waste, McCullough said.
The former Hill aides said to expect extensive oversight of broadband stimulus funds, especially from House Republicans. House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., wants to hold seven hearings a week, said McCullough, showing that “he is very serious in his determination to review programs and to look at where government’s role is and should be.” Issa told Politico back in November that he wants each of his committee’s seven subcommittees to hold one or two hearings a week.
A rewrite of the Telecom Act probably is not imminent, the former Hill aides said. “You have a lot of new members who don’t have the decades of experience that some of the departing members had,” Paoletta said. At most, there may be hearings in the second half of the year, she said. McCullough agreed. With neither party fully in control of the Hill, McCullough expects Congress to concentrate on investigations and oversight, she said.