Hutchison Drafting ‘Comprehensive’ Wireless Bill on D-Block

Last year, Hutchison said she was “prepared to support” D-block reallocation but she had questions about the approach. The Republican Commerce staffer said Hutchison “is working on comprehensive wireless legislation that will address the public safety spectrum issue as well has her concerns, but generally she favors allocating the spectrum as opposed to auctioning it.” The bill also deals with other wireless issues, said the staffer, declining to elaborate.

The White House is expected to unveil a more detailed proposal for a fund to pay for a national public safety network as part of the White House’s annual budget, now due in mid-February, industry and government officials said. It will be one of hundreds of such recommendations that get buried in the budget each year. The White House got involved in the issue more deeply at the urging of staffers for Vice President Joe Biden, two industry sources said Friday.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has said repeatedly he would welcome a congressional decision on the D-block and a public safety network. The FCC, as an independent agency, does not have to follow White House direction. “The White House has proposed a National Wireless Initiative that will help unleash new spectrum through incentive auctions, expand next generation wireless broadband coverage across the country, and implement and pay for a nationwide interoperable public safety network,” a senior FCC official said in a written statement Friday. “We share these goals and, like the President, believe they are essential to our global competitiveness, economic growth, and innovation. We look forward to working with Congress and the Administration in the months ahead on the specifics."

The White House proposal is expected to call for a national corporation to administer the new network, to be paid for through an auction of broadcast spectrum, an industry lawyer said. “Nobody wants to look anti-public safety,” the official said. “At the end of the day, this is going to be a budget battle. … There are a lot of unanswered questions."

Capitol Hill remains divided on the D-block issue. House Commerce Committee members signaled at a hearing last year that they support a commercial auction. But Senate Commerce Committee leaders support reallocation. And the chairmen of the Homeland Security committees in both houses support reallocation.

The White House endorsement “is a crucial development in our efforts to ensure the development of a national interoperable public safety wireless broadband network,” said House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King, R-N.Y.. He has said he will reintroduce his D-block reallocation bill soon. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said he’s “glad that the Obama Administration is strongly supporting public safety officials and first responders to give them the communications capability they need to do their jobs -- especially when the unthinkable occurs.” Rockefeller last week reintroduced his bill giving the D-block to public safety (CD Jan 26 p1).

Leaders of the House Commerce Committee were silent about the White House endorsement. The offices of full committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., Ranking Member Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., didn’t respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for subcommittee Ranking Member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., declined to comment.

Other committee members reaffirmed support for an auction. Unless lawmakers can find “a ‘pay for’ to make up the $16 billion price tag,” Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., supports holding an auction with no conditions, said a spokesman. Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., “continues to support an auction and would oppose the reallocation,” a spokesman said Friday. Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., said this month (CD Jan 21 p5) that he still supports an auction and believes the Commerce Committee -- not King’s Homeland Security Committee -- has jurisdiction.

Medley Global Advisors analyst Jeff Silva said the “turning point” for those who support giving public safety control of the D-block came last year when Rockefeller announced the details of his public safety communications bill. The White House “seems to be harmonizing its policy with a policy that had all the momentum anyhow,” Silva said. “It obviously helps when the administration gives its blessing, but it’s kind of icing on the cake for what Rockefeller and other lawmakers had been pursuing.”

Former Sen. Slade Gorton, a member of the 9/11 Commission, counseled against giving public safety the D-block, in an opinion piece last week in The Seattle Times. The approach would offer “public-safety officials none of the tools or resources they need to build the network,” Gorton wrote. “As a fiscal conservative, I also believe the FCC auction is more fiscally prudent. … The private sector money raised in the D-Block auction could be used to support the construction and operation of the network planned for the spectrum already allocated to public-safety users.”

AT&T said it’s “encouraged” by the White House endorsement. “We have long supported the public safety community’s efforts to obtain sufficient broadband spectrum to build and operate an interoperable wireless broadband network.” The Connect Public Safety Now Coalition said it “respectfully” disagrees “with the latest approach for D Block reallocation laid out by the Administration.” The National Broadband Plan recommendation to auction the spectrum “would assure the build-out of a nationwide network for first responders in all regions of the country, create jobs and generate critically needed federal revenue,” the coalition said.