Congress' C-Band Window 'Has Closed,' Bazelon Says; Senate Appropriations Sets Hearing
The “window” for Congress to “do something legislative” to address the FCC’s coming auction of spectrum on the 3.7-4.2 GHz C band “has closed” due to Congressional Budget Office recent scoring of the coming sale (see 2003030064), said Brattle Group…
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principal Coleman Bazelon during a Friday FCBA event. The Senate Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee, meanwhile, set a hearing with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and Democratic Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Geoffrey Starks that’s expected to have a major focus on the agency's C-band plans. The Senate Appropriations Committee said the hearing is aimed at reviewing the FCC’s FY 2021 budget request. Financial Services Chairman John Kennedy, R-La., billed it as focusing specifically on his concerns about the commission’s C-band plans (see 2002130053). The hearing begins 10 a.m. in 562 Dirksen. President Donald Trump’s administration proposes just over $343 million in funding for the FCC in FY 2021, including $11.3 million for its Office of Inspector General (see 2002100056). That’s just over a 1% increase from the amount appropriated for FY 2020 and 2 percent more than the $335.6 million the Trump administration proposed last year. The House Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee plans a separate FCC budget hearing Wednesday (see 2003050068). CBO’s evaluation of the 5G Spectrum Act (S-2881) likely would have produced “a positive score” if done even a “month or two” earlier, Bazelon said. The office instead estimates enacting S-2881 would increase the federal deficit by a net $2.47 billion through FY 2030. S-2881 would set a graduated scale for amounts the FCC would be required to return to the Treasury from C-band proceeds, beginning with “not less than 50 percent” of the first $40 billion. CBO found the C-band auction will yield an average of $32 billion but produce only $15.4 billion in net proceeds. If the office had evaluated S-2881 earlier, its scoring would have been based on the annual baseline assumptions from February 2019, when the FCC’s C-band plans were far from certain, Bazelon said. The scoring of the auction this February factors in more certainty about the commission’s plans for the sale. Bazelon earlier co-wrote an economic analysis for the C-Band Alliance that said the FCC has authority to require companies buying licenses in a C-band auction to pay for clearing the band as a condition of their participation (see 2001160059).