Senate Commerce Clears Rockefeller Public Safety Bill

Rockefeller and Hutchison’s substitute amendment provided the base of the bill, but the committee accepted 17 of more than 80 amendments filed by committee members before the markup. Many were not offered, and one by Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., was rejected during the markup. Republican Sens. DeMint, Toomey, Olympia Snowe of Maine and Marco Rubio of Florida provided the four no votes on the final bill.

S-911 “marries very smart spectrum policy with very good public policy,” Rockefeller said. Approving it is a “massive step” on a “deeply and profoundly emotional” issue, he said. Hutchison and Rockefeller “began this bill with very different approaches,” but hard work by the senators’ staffs resulted in a bipartisan bill, Hutchison said. “I think we have come out with an excellent bill."

After the vote, Rockefeller said he would immediately open talks with Senate leadership about timing for a vote by the full Senate. Rockefeller told reporters he thinks the bill requires floor time and likely would not pass on unanimous consent. Rockefeller wants the vote to happen before the tenth anniversary of 9/11, he said. Rockefeller said he’s not yet concerned about the House, even though House Commerce Committee Republicans have voiced doubts that the D-block should be reallocated.

DeMint most forcefully opposed the bill, which he said would increase the national debt by $17 billion. He questioned giving away the $2.8 billion D-block for free to a government-created body made up of cabinet officials and administration appointees. “Somehow this new corporation is being sold … as a private entity,” but it’s really “a bureaucratic centrally controlled system … that is anything but private,” he said. “It is going to be politicized.” It’s unreasonable to assume that “a quasi-government entity can manage the fast-changing technology that we have in the communications industry in a way that will maintain first-quality communication for our first responders,” DeMint said. “This is a naïve thought."

Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., withdrew his amendment to require a D-block auction and voted for the bill. But he defended the withdrawn amendment, saying an auction would send more money to the U.S. Treasury and still allow public safety to use the spectrum by making agreements with industry. Rockefeller said he opposed the auction because the D-block is “the last open band that is contiguous to the existing 10 MHz of spectrum” owned by public safety. If auctioned, it would be “lost forever,” he said.

Toomey wanted to cut a section giving $1 billion for research and development for public safety communications, but the committee rejected it in a 9-16 recorded vote. Toomey said the private sector is already doing R&D on its own. But Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said there’s not enough R&D in the public safety market, which is significantly smaller than the commercial market. Spending $1 billion will help drive down public safety equipment costs, Warner said: “A penny invested is a dollar saved in the long term."

Improving public safety outweighs reducing the deficit, said Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J. The country’s debt problems must be solved, “but I'm not going to stand by and let them be solved by excuses not to implement a system that saves lives."

Several adopted amendments relate to governance of the public safety network by the Public Safety Broadband Corp. proposed by the bill. A DeMint amendment shortens to 10 years from 15 the expiration date on the license given to the corporation, and limits any subsequent renewal license to five years, down from 15 in the original bill. Other DeMint amendments require the corporation’s board to be chaired by a non-federal member, and require six non-federal members to be present for a quorum. Amendments by Rubio require the board to include rural and urban representatives, and direct the corporation to leverage existing commercial infrastructure. An amendment by Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., bans the corporation from selling commercial wireless services. Two amendments by Toomey prohibit the corporation from lobbying, and require the Government Accountability Office to do annual audits of the corporation.

One adopted Warner amendment requires an FCC inventory of public safety spectrum. That will help the government identify what existing public safety spectrum is not being used, Warner said. A Rubio amendment reduces to 8 years from 15 the amount of time that unused funds can stay in the Spectrum Relocation Fund that covers the cost of moving federal entities. An amendment by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., tweaks the bill’s language on TV white spaces and incentive auctions. A Blunt amendment requires the FCC to send a report to Congress in five years about unlicensed spectrum.

An adopted Hutchison amendment directs the FCC to allow low-power TV stations to relocate from UHF to VHF during repacking. A DeMint amendment removes the 2015 due date for the FCC to make 2 GHz of mobile satellite services spectrum available for terrestrial use by auction. An amendment by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., requires the FCC and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to study next-generation 911 services.

Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., plan to work with Rockefeller and Hutchison to meld the spectrum bill with their own public safety legislation (S-1040), McCain said in a written statement after the markup. The senators will also try to “ensure the final bill is fully paid for and offers funding for deficit reduction in addition to spectrum and funding to first responders,” McCain said. “We are confident all these needs can be met."

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King, R-N.Y., celebrated the vote. He urged House Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., to immediately take up King’s bill that would also reallocate the D-block to public safety (HR-607). Upton didn’t comment on the Senate Commerce vote. Deficit reduction remains a major concern for House Commerce, Charles Dowd, deputy chief of the New York City Police Department, told reporters. Public safety will continue to try to convince House Commerce members that the public safety network “is an investment that has to be made,” even in a down economy, he said.

Several companies and industry groups celebrated the committee vote, including CTIA, CEA, NAB, NCTA, the American Cable Association, Telecommunications Industry Association, AT&T and Verizon. Public Knowledge praised Cantwell’s amendment to protect the TV white spaces. But Free Press said the bill may jeopardize white spaces because it requires a minimum of 84 MHz to be auctioned. “The legislation currently expresses a clear goal of maintaining adequate unlicensed spectrum, but the bill’s limits on FCC flexibility may make this goal impossible to achieve,” said Matt Wood, policy director of the Free Press Action Fund.

While an amendment on 700 MHz interoperability by Sens. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Mark Begich, D-Alaska, was not offered, Rural Cellular Association CEO Steve Berry said the group plans to keep pushing the issue. “Chairman Rockefeller has recognized that interoperability is an important issue and has indicated to Senators Wicker and Begich that he will continue to work on it,” an RCA spokeswoman said.