Thune Eyes Communications Act Overhaul Next Year, STELA Markup Next Month
Expect the Senate Commerce Committee to mark up its Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act (STELA) reauthorization bill in July, and if the stars align, to join the House effort to overhaul the Communications Act next year, ranking member John Thune, R-S.D., said Wednesday at a Free State Foundation event on Capitol Hill. Thune and Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., are cobbling together a bipartisan bill that may attempt some video marketplace overhauls, they told us last week (CD June 18 p4).
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Discussions are underway “about what that may look like, of course paying attention to what the House has already done,” Thune said Wednesday, citing the provisions on retransmission consent included in that House Commerce Committee STELA bill (HR-4572), cleared from committee earlier this year. There’s “interest in both chambers on updating our video laws,” Thune said, even though it’s “too soon to say what the final” STELA bill will include. The Supreme Court’s Aereo decision (see separate report in this issue) is likely to have “wide-ranging implications for the television industry,” Thune added.
The Senate Commerce STELA bill is “expected to be ready for the Committee to review soon,” Rockefeller’s office told us Wednesday. The Commerce and Judiciary committees share jurisdiction over STELA, and Senate Judiciary has produced a narrow bipartisan reauthorization bill that doesn’t include such video law updates, with markup slated for Thursday. Lobbyists expect a similar bill out of House Judiciary but worry about what the Senate Commerce draft, also unreleased, may hold (CD June 9 p1).
Rockefeller and Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mark Pryor, D-Ark., have indicated little interest in updating the Communications Act, as House Republican lawmakers are trying to do. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who helped author the 1996 act, also pushed back against an update last week, calling the 1996 legislation “the future” (CD June 19 p10). But Rockefeller is retiring at the end of his term, and Pryor faces a tough re-election battle. If Republicans take the Senate this November, Thune is the likely chairman. If Democrats keep the chamber, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., is widely expected to take over as chairman once Rockefeller retires. Nelson is “open to considering changes to the Communications Act as long as they promote innovation, advance competition, and, most importantly, protect consumers,” his spokesman told us.
The Senate should “follow the example set by the House” next year in overhauling the act, Thune said, describing regular contact with House lawmakers leading that charge. Thune said that during the passage of the Telecom Act of 1996, a South Dakotan and a Michigan led the Commerce Committees “so perhaps the stars have aligned there, too.” The Republican chairing the House Commerce Committee now, Fred Upton, represents Michigan. “I reject that pessimistic view,” Thune declared of any critics who suggest the politics of rewriting communications law are too complicated, saying there’s “bipartisan consensus that our communications laws are outdated.” The 1996 act “got the job done” but was a transitional update not suited for permanence, Thune said.
Thune railed against “pro-regulatory advocates” who desire to reclassify broadband as a Title II telecom service: “Common carrier regulations designed nearly a century ago for a telephone monopoly simply do not make sense in a more competitive broadband world.”
Those advocates “have framed it in a way that is resonating with many Americans” while Title II opponents haven’t “done a good job of getting that message out,” said FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, a Republican speaking at the same Free State event. “We have to do the same.” Thune lambasted claims that the telecom marketplace is not competitive and said it’s not simply monopolies and duopolies, as the pro-regulatory advocates would argue, painting a picture of a “dysfunctional” and broken marketplace in need of fixing. “Where the U.S. really outshines Europe is broadband deployment,” Thune declared. “When it comes to mobile broadband, the gap is even more pronounced."
"In my view, this makes no sense,” Pai said of Title II reclassification of broadband. “The common carriage rules of Title II were designed to control one company that had a monopoly on long-distance telephone service. Beyond the sloganeering, there are any number of complicated questions I have yet to hear an answer [to].” He rejected the idea of reclassification with forbearance, suspecting any enthusiasm for it would be “short-lived.” Pai praised House lawmakers attempting to overhaul the Communications Act and Thune’s call to do the same in the Senate. Net neutrality advocates shouldn’t be allowed to dominate that debate with “hypothetical horribles,” Pai said.
"We need to start thinking about ‘what’s next,'” Thune said, emphasizing the need to use spectrum more efficiently and free up spectrum for commercial uses, such as the airwaves held by government: “In the future, we're going to need these spectrum users to start living much closer to each other. … We're going to need to get the most possible out of the current spectrum map.” Thune is “hopeful” for extending an Internet tax moratorium permanently and for the Senate to advance a cybersecurity bill before the end of the year, he said.