GOP Takeover Won't Stop Bipartisan Outreach in Telecom Act Overhaul, Redl Says
House Republicans have every intention of still engaging with Democrats to overhaul the 1996 Telecom Act, said House Commerce Committee Republican Chief Counsel David Redl Thursday. “All along we’ve known it would have to be a bipartisan process to get to something that people would agree to,” he said during a panel discussion hosted by TechFreedom. “Frankly, that’s been the hallmark of our committee.”
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House Republicans announced plans to overhaul the Communications Act last December under the leadership of House Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore. They have sought comment through white papers this year, and Redl said the committee will likely release at least one or two more this year.
With Republicans winning control of both chambers in Tuesday's midterm elections (see 1411050043), industry lobbyists and observers told us the next Congress will now be far likelier to advance a Communications Act overhaul, but also that a GOP-controlled Congress could pass more partisan legislation, touching on net neutrality or municipal broadband (see 1411050046).
“We know how to make deals, we know how to get bipartisanship on communications issues,” Redl said. Committee Republican staffers joined with committee Democratic staffers for private briefings with industry stakeholders in October.
Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., is expected to chair the Commerce Committee and has said for months he wants to tackle a Communications Act overhaul in tandem with Upton and Walden. Thune has said he discussed with Walden “the need for such updates as a result of significant transformations in our nation’s telecommunication sector” prior to House Republicans announcing in December plans to overhaul the act (see 1312050049).
Upton emphasized the Communications Act overhaul initiative, in a statement after the Tuesday election results. House Republicans have “spent the past year gathering input and information to inform our work to bring the nation’s communications laws into the 21st Century,” Upton said. “Over the next several months, we will take what we have learned from our hearings and white papers to update the law to boost job creation and economic growth in the innovation era.” House Commerce has “made progress on key issues to consumers, workers, and job creators,” Upton said, citing privacy and data protection.
“We want to take action,” Redl said, expressing a desire to get “pen to paper” in January. “There’s a real hunger to engage on this issue.” The goal is to advance legislation in the next Congress, he said. Redl said congressional Democrats have indicated they're receptive to an update and stressed the importance of “making sure we’ve got buy-in from both sides of the aisle that this is an effort worth undertaking.”
There are “ways to improve the ways the FCC works,” Redl said, citing House legislation to that end that stalled in the Democratic Senate. “There are times when [the FCC is] great, there are times when it’s not great.”
“Republicans have a choice,” said TechFreedom President Berin Szoka, saying they can either engage in “voting again and again and again to repeal Obamacare … or they can actually get something done.” They should “seize the mantle they had in the ’80s,” he said, also speaking during the panel discussion. There are incentives out there for both parties to “cut a deal” that avoids Title II reclassification, he said.
“The law is way, way behind telecommunications,” said Minority Media and Telecommunications Council CEO Kim Keenan, backing the Communications Act revamp effort. A Republican-controlled Congress after these elections means “Title II is out” at the FCC in its net neutrality rulemaking, she said. “We’ve been out against Title II from the beginning.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Szoka countered, suggesting FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler may still advance a proposal involving some Title II reclassification. “That would poison the well for bipartisan compromise going forward.”
“The Wheeler proposal initially was a compromise,” said Information Technology and Innovation Foundation President Rob Atkinson, recalling a proposal that relied on Communications Act Section 706 authority. "That was the right compromise.”
Szoka suspects that House Commerce Vice Chairwoman Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., may take over the Commerce Trade Subcommittee chairmanship now that Chairman Lee Terry, R-Neb., lost his re-election bid. Blackburn would thus be “less engaged on net neutrality” and more focused on consumer protection, said Szoka. There would be “more room for compromise on net neutrality,” given Blackburn’s harsh framing of net neutrality issues, he said. “That opens some room for a deal.”
“I’m not sure you can compare the ’96 Act to what we’re trying to do,” Redl said, calling the Telecom Act of 1996 “fairly narrowly focused” on local phone service. “It was a sweeping change for its time.” But there’s now more “fungibility of networks” and a move toward IP, a convergence with more services involved, which “makes our effort more challenging” but also “a little easier,” Redl said.