Hill Leaders Negotiating to Add FCC Reauthorization, Spectrum Measures to FY 2018 Spending Bill
Congressional leaders are working to see if they can reach a deal to attach legislative language on FCC renewal and some spectrum issues to the FY 2018 omnibus spending bill, the leaders of the House and Senate Commerce Committees told reporters Tuesday. The current continuing resolution to fund government expires March 23. House Commerce is also eyeing upcoming work on STELA reauthorization and paid prioritization issues, said Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore. Walden also touted House Commerce's communications policy priorities Tuesday, at an NAB conference.
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The legislation lawmakers hope to include in the omnibus includes the Repack Airwaves Yielding Better Access for Users of Modern Services (Ray Baum's) Act FCC rechartering (HR-4986) and the Senate-passed Making Opportunities for Broadband Investment and Limiting Excessive and Needless Obstacles to Wireless (Mobile Now) Act (S-19) spectrum bill (see 1708030060), said Walden and Senate Commerce Chairman John Thune, R-S.D. HR-4986, which cleared House Commerce earlier this month, includes language to authorize additional repack funding (see 1802140064). The bill also includes language from the Spectrum Auction Deposits Act (HR-4109) that would allow the FCC to place bidders' deposits in future spectrum auctions in a Treasury Department fund (see 1710250026).
Lawmakers and staffers were negotiating Tuesday on “legislative language” on FCC reauthorization and spectrum repack funding, Walden told NAB: “We need to get this done in real time, today or tomorrow” or “the window closes” on using the omnibus as a vehicle. “I don't think that's going to happen, but until the ink's dry, I don't trust anything around Washington,” Walden said, encouraging NAB members to lobby for HR-4986 as a “top priority” in planned Capitol Hill meetings Wednesday. He's optimistic the House will be able to easily pass HR-4986 as a stand-alone bill, noting the compromises with House Commerce Democrats that led to the bill's unanimous clearance from the committee. A floor vote on HR-4986 could come as soon as “early next week,” possibly under suspension of the rules, Walden later told reporters.
“We're working with” Thune on attaching HR-4986 and exploring how to “work out all those differences” that led House Commerce to jettison language from a manager's amendment that would have attached S-19's language, Walden told reporters: The goal is to “get this moved forward as one package,” either through the omnibus or as a stand-alone bill. The “pressure's on” in the omnibus push because appropriators say they need to finish their work on the spending measure this week, he said.
“We are looking at what we might be able to get done” on FCC reauthorization and spectrum issues “if we can get agreement between the House and Senate,” Thune told reporters: “Those discussions and conversations continue, but obviously that has to come together pretty quickly if we're going to get it together in time to hitch a ride” on the omnibus. Thune is interested in attaching the American Vision for Safer Transportation Through Advancement of Revolutionary Technologies (AV Start) Act (S-1885) to the omnibus but is doubtful about a deal. “We still have to” reconcile that bill with the House-passed Safely Ensuring Lives Future Deployment and Research in Vehicle Evolution Act (HR-3388), which contains “different provisions” (see 1709060035), Thune said. “I don't think anything's going to get on the omni that isn't agreed upon by both the House and Senate, so we're probably not quite there yet” on S-1885, he said. Senate Commerce cleared the measure in October (see 1710040063).
House Commerce aims to begin the STELA reauthorization process “soon,” though the bulk of that work will happen in the 116th Congress, Walden told NAB. “It requires a lot of stakeholder input and careful consideration,” including substantial stakeholder consultation, he said: “There has been and continues to be a bipartisan call for real change in the video and broadcast industries. There are serious questions regarding how the outdated laws that govern” those industries “impact consumers.”
Walden's long-sought paid prioritization hearing is “on the books” but it's unclear when it will happen, he told reporters. Walden first floated a possible hearing in December amid his ongoing push for a compromise on net neutrality legislation. House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Mike Doyle, D-Pa., and Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., filed their Congressional Review Act resolution Tuesday aimed at repealing the FCC's order rescinding 2015 net neutrality rules (see 1802270040).