Walden Doubtful on C-Band Bill Amid Talks; Kennedy Hearing March 10

Other telecom legislative priorities are getting more movement, including House passage Tuesday of the Senate-approved version of the Broadband Deployment Accuracy and Technological Availability Act (S-1822). House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mike Doyle, D-Pa., will announce plans Friday for a markup next week of the National Suicide Hotline Designation Act (HR-4194) and other telecom bills that have clear bipartisan support (see 2002260063). Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., indicated a Wednesday committee hearing on 5G supply-chain security issues (see 2002260028) is partly aimed at exploring additional legislation.

“It actually feels” like C-band negotiations are “going the other way,” away from a consensus on legislative language, Walden told us Monday. He and House Commerce Democratic leaders agreed to continue talks this week, but “I’m not overly optimistic” it will result in a deal. Walden had earlier been more upbeat about the prospects for an agreement even as Wicker raised doubts about the path forward (see 2002110041). "The worst thing we could do is blow up the auction and I don’t want to do that,” Walden said Monday. He cited the FCC’s Friday vote to approve Chairman Ajit Pai’s auction plan (see 2002280044) as a contributing factor. “The FCC’s done a lot of work on this now, so if we go back to legislate and change this, what kind of impact is that going to have?” Walden said.

“We’re still talking and have some things to work out” on C-band legislation, Doyle said. Walden “shares some of the same goals as I do” here, “but it’s all about coming up with a formula that can work.” Walden “has got more vetting to than [House Commerce Democrats] do at the FCC and with” President Donald Trump’s administration, Doyle said. "It's a matter of whether there is the will in the House and Senate to want to do this in such a way that we secure pay-fors for priorities that both parties claim to want to address. There aren't many pay-fors in this town anymore."

Doyle said during an Incompas event the pressure he and others on Capitol Hill successfully applied on Pai to back a public C-band auction (see 1911180065) is an example of a “regulatory win” House Commerce was able to achieve without passing legislation. There’s still "a lot yet to be done” on C-band issues, he said. Doyle’s earlier Clearing Broad Airwaves for New Deployment (C-Band) Act (HR-4855/S-2921) favored allocating most auction proceeds to fund telecom projects (see 1910240046).

Kennedy told us he set a March 10 Senate Appropriations Financial Services hearing on the FCC’s approved C-band auction plan. He aims to bring in Pai to testify, but there may also be “some surprise guests." Kennedy has focused his ire on the plan to allocate $15 billion for relocation and incentive payments to incumbents (see 2002130053). The Kennedy-led Spectrum Management And Reallocation for Taxpayers (Smart) Act (S-3246) would set aside some proceeds for relocation, incentive and U.S. Treasury payments. It reserves the bulk for rural broadband and 911 (see 2001280041).

Complications

A Congressional Budget Office report on the C-band-centric 5G Spectrum Act (S-2881) is complicating efforts to reach a legislative deal, lobbyists told us. CBO said “winning bidders” in a C-band auction “probably will be willing to spend $25 billion to $40 billion for the licenses, with an expected value of $32 billion over the 2022-2023 period.” Winning auction bids “could be higher or lower than estimated for several reasons, including the competitiveness of an auction, the financial and strategic interests of the participants, and the degree of uncertainty surrounding the time and investments needed to make the C-band available for terrestrial use.”

CBO estimates available net proceeds from the auction will be about $15.4 billion out of the $32 billion in total sales. CBO factored in an estimated $15 billion in relocation and incentive payments. The office “estimates that companies will reduce their gross bids by about 5 percent, or $1.6 billion, to account for the additional uncertainty about when frequencies will be available for new terrestrial services.”

“Negotiations are going to get harder now that there’s less money to play around with” based on the CBO estimate, a communications lobbyist said. “The only way Congress can actually get some of [the CBO proceeds] to play is by taking away the money the FCC is directing” toward relocation and incentive payments.

“I doubt any [C-band legislation] will pass” at this point, Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Blair Levin told us. “The incentives simply aren’t great enough. And while there is opposition” from Kennedy and others to the FCC-passed auction plan, “it isn’t deep or wide enough to push a bill through.”

Others were less pessimistic. Free Press General Counsel Matt Wood suggested House Commerce Democrats shouldn’t completely rule out moving C-band legislation even without buy-in from Walden. “The notion that nothing can pass both chambers unless you get the buy-in” from both parties “is not necessarily true,” Wood said.

“Historically, these things tend to get resolved at the last minute,” and that could especially be true as the FCC moves closer to its planned Dec. 8 start-date for the auction, said Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld. “It seems very clear” Kennedy wants to keep pursuing his C-band agenda “very aggressively,” so the issue is unlikely to “die down any time soon.”

Progress Elsewhere

“We’ll be marking up a lot” of telecom policy bills at the coming House Communications meeting, Doyle told us. “We haven’t decided” on a final list of measures, but it’s going to include “some of the usual suspects,” including HR-4194. That designates 988 as the national suicide hotline code (see 1908200070). “We also want to” pass legislation to repeal the mandate for public safety to move off the 470-512 MHz T band by 2021, Doyle said. Two measures the House Communications Subcommittee examined during a hearing last week include T-band repeal language: the Don’t Break Up the T-Band Act (HR-451/S-2748) and the Fee Integrity and Responsibilities and To Regain Essential Spectrum for Public-safety Operators Needed to Deploy Equipment Reliably (First Responder) Act (HR-5928).

"I think we're in good shape" to mark up some of the public safety bills, but there are still serious reservations about the Reinforcing and Evaluating Service Integrity, Local Infrastructure and Emergency Notification for Today’s (Resilient) Networks Act (HR-5926) and other resiliency bills House Communications examined last week, Walden told us. Republicans "feel like [HR-5926] is being jammed through the process. We've had text for a month, but it's a big issue to take on" quickly. HR-5926 would require the FCC do rulemakings on improving coordination among communications providers and with public safety answering points during emergencies.

The House passed an amended version of S-1822 Tuesday by unanimous consent. The bill would require the FCC to collect more “granular” broadband coverage data and create a “user-friendly challenge process” (see 1906130029). S-1822’s House-passed companion (HR-4229) was expanded into a larger broadband mapping legislative package (see 1912160052). The amended S-1822 text includes the text of both HR-4229 and the House-passed Mapping Accuracy Promotes Services Act (HR-4227), which would bar companies from knowingly giving the FCC inaccurate broadband coverage data. Senate leaders are aiming to clear the amended S-1822 by UC soon, said a spokesperson for Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D.

Doyle and House Communications ranking member Bob Latta, R-Ohio, noted the progress on S-1822 during the Incompas event. Doyle hailed Congress for being “on the verge of solving” long-standing issues with the accuracy of broadband coverage data and chided the FCC for “trying to rush” some broadband matters “out the door.” He cited commissioners' party-line approval Friday of plans for the first phase of the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (see 2002280002). Acting before fully fixing its broadband mapping procedures “compounds the flaws” of existing maps and “flies in the face of Congress’ intent” that the commission deploy “broadband to more people and encourage competitive markets,” Doyle said. “We need to make sure” that the FCC develops better maps and that unserved areas “are being helped right now,” Latta said. Others at Incompas marked the 10-year-old FCC National Broadband Plan and suggested potential changes for its successor (see 2003030030).