Nelson Commits to Reviving Mobile Now, FCC Reauthorization Next Year if Necessary
If 2016 gridlock prevails, Mobile Now (S-2555) and the FCC Reauthorization Act (S-2644) won't likely vanish, even if a Senate leadership fight prevents their passage this year and Republicans lose control of the upper chamber. Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., wrote both measures this Congress, and despite his taking the lead, ranking member Bill Nelson, D-Fla., committed to us he would, as potential chairman next year if there is a Democrat-controlled Senate, fight to revive and pass the measures in 2017 if need be.
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Democrats are seen as having a chance of winning control of the Senate in the November elections, according to polling estimates and the seats at play this year, and Nelson is expected to lead on the Commerce Committee if there's a party handover. Republicans have a 54-46 majority now. Nelson, a co-sponsor of both measures, emphasized he doesn’t believe the present gridlock will be fatal.
“Thune and I get along,” Nelson said in an interview. “We get things done. Point number two, I’m an optimist that we’ll get these things done. Point number three, if worse came to worst and we had to do it next year, we would.”
Thune fought to win Nelson’s backing for Mobile Now and the FCC Reauthorization Act for many months this Congress. Both were key priorities for Thune that he staked out in the first half of 2015, and both bills were reduced in scope in order to get Nelson’s support and unanimous Commerce Committee passage.
Mobile Now and FCC Reauthorization stalled on the Senate floor this year due to Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who took to the floor last month to emphasize he will repeatedly object to Mobile Now as long as Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel isn't reconfirmed. A Reid aide told us Reid would do the same for the reauthorization (see 1609270053).
Nelson said he doesn't believe resurrecting the legislation in 2017 will be a necessity, despite confirming an interest in doing so if he holds the gavel and needs to. “That’s not the emphasis of my answer,” Nelson told us about a possible 2017 revival. “We’re going to get it done this year.” And “indeed,” he said, this would include reconfirmation for Rosenworcel.
“It’s too early to tell,” Senate Communications Subcommittee ranking member Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, told us when asked whether the two measures would return under a possible Democratic Senate, were they to stall through the end of this Congress.
Thune originally circulated a reauthorization draft in summer 2015 that included FCC process overhaul language objectionable to Democrats. Nelson pushed back, and no legislation emerged publicly until early this year, when Thune dropped those process overhaul provisions in exchange for a simpler reauthorization bill that became loaded up during the markup process with anti-spoofing and direct 911 dialing provisions. The original drafts of the Mobile Now spectrum legislation circulated in November also were considered more aggressive. Following Nelson’s national security concerns and administration negotiation, the measure lessened in scope and cleared committee, with additions from Schatz focused on unlicensed spectrum and from Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., on dig once broadband deployment.
There's a question what the House will do, even if the Senate clears the two measures during the coming lame duck session after the election in November. House lawmakers have no precise companions for either bill, though House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., has supported both and was formerly optimistic about Mobile Now’s eventual passage (see 1606080067)
Walden’s subcommittee has cleared some legislation that appears in the two Senate bills. He also succeeded last week at packaging eight of the House telecom bills -- including ones that address spoofing and direct 911 dialing in equivalent ways to the Senate measures -- in the FCC Consolidated Reporting Act (S-253), now called the Communications Act Update of 2016 and unanimously approved on the House floor (see 1609270059). If the Rosenworcel impasse ends, the Senate could approve the amended version of S-253 and clear the bills within it. Senate Democrats questioned at least one underlying measure making it through the Senate floor, however, with Nelson telling us in June that floor prospects for the Small Business Broadband Deployment Act (S-2283/HR-4596), now part of S-253, are “slim” (see 1606150052).
Walden was dubious of Senate bills’ prospects this Congress but didn’t rule out passage. “The Mobile Now bill just got killed by Reid,” Walden said after the exchange between Reid and Thune on the Senate floor. If, as Thune predicted, Rosenworcel gets reconfirmed in the lame duck and all of the Senate Commerce Committee legislation moves, Walden eyes an opening, too, with the House able to move fast if circumstances align. “It depends upon when in lame duck and all that and what they do with the bill we just sent over [S-253],” said Walden. “So I wouldn’t rule it out. Major things happen in lame ducks.”