The Senate Judiciary Committee cleared by voice vote...
The Senate Judiciary Committee cleared by voice vote its narrow Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act reauthorization bill Thursday, with one technical amendment from Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and ranking member Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, introduced…
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the two-page bill, S-2454, that would extend STELA for five years and lacks the video market overhauls some have sought. At the Thursday session, Leahy called the bill “straightforward” and Grassley said those other video market proposals are “more appropriately handled” as part of a telecom law overhaul within the Commerce Committee. NAB has pressed for such a clean reauthorization and President Gordon Smith reiterated its “strong support” for the bill, after its approval. “It helps low-power television stations, addresses a disparity,” Durbin said of his amendment (http://1.usa.gov/1pSIA5L). “These are the little guys in the broadcast world.” He referred to a change made in the 2010 STELA reauthorization to the definition of local service areas that applies if a satellite company retransmits a low-power station. Not included were cable companies, and the amendment fixes that, Durbin said. He has talked to all relevant stakeholders, who “support this effort,” Durbin said. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., brought up “a problem I have” in Alabama, where many households lack access to in-state local programming, but refrained from offering any amendment addressing that. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, requested a “serious conversation” about killing statutory licensing requirements and doesn’t want to wait five years to do that, he said. The Thursday Judiciary agenda had also included the Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act (S-517) but that was postponed. TVFreedom, a coalition of broadcast interests including NAB, wrote a Thursday letter to Judiciary leaders thanking and praising them for the bill. “This legislation preserves, rather than eliminates or redesigns, the lifeline basic service tier provision,” TVFreedom’s spokesman wrote (http://bit.ly/1jo50pA). “Eliminating or altering this requirement of cable TV systems would be detrimental to millions of cable subscribers across the country who depend on broadcast TV as a vital lifeline to emergency information in times of disaster."