Former FCC Chief Economist Leslie Marx, a Duke University economist,...

worry that the PCAST report will divert attention away from the more difficult but potentially much more valuable task of clearing and auctioning clean spectrum for commercial use,” Marx wrote (http://xrl.us/bnkjx9). “It falls on the White House to take the leadership role to ensure the efficient use of government-held spectrum, and the PCAST Report’s solution of merely offering incentives for sharing the spectrum falls acutely short of that goal.” The AWS-1 auction showed that sharing works, Marx said. “Clearing and reallocation of Federal spectrum is something that was done as part of the FCC’s AWS-1 auction, with a net surplus to the government,” she said. “This shows that clearing is not only possible, it is fiscally responsible. Furthermore, one can design the auction, as the FCC knows how to do, so that spectrum is only cleared if the value generated exceeds the cost. With this auction design in mind, the cost of clearing becomes less important. So, although the PCAST report raises the issue that ‘relocation costs may even exceed the likely revenue raised by auctioning the band to commercial users,’ they may not, and an auction could be designed with reserve prices so that Federal users would not be asked to clear the spectrum unless the revenue did exceed the relocation costs.” PCAST released its report last month (CD July 23 p1).