Senate Commerce Postpones Markup of Cantwell-Led Spectrum Bill for 4th Time
The Senate Commerce Committee is again postponing a planned markup of the Spectrum and National Security Act (S-4207), a spokesperson confirmed Monday night. The Tuesday meeting would have been Senate Commerce’s fourth attempt to vote on S-4207, which in a revised form unveiled last week would renew the FCC’s lapsed spectrum auction authority for five years but mandated no sales of specific bands. S-4207’s prospects of getting bipartisan support had appeared doubtful Monday, but the bill’s backers were continuing that afternoon to court a handful of Republican holdouts to back it.
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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., criticized Republicans for again torpedoing Commerce movement on S-4207. Commerce ranking member Ted Cruz of Texas and other Republicans were poised to seek roll-call votes on a litany of amendments if the Tuesday meeting had gone ahead, lobbyists said. The package “would unlock much needed funding for the 24 million Americans who rely on the Affordable Connectivity Program, invest in America’s competitiveness, help outcompete the Chinese Communist Party, give law enforcement much needed funding to upgrade our life-saving 911 system, and provides millions for minority serving institutions,” Schumer said in a statement. “Sadly, it is clear” Cruz “is more interested in carrying water for big corporations than helping working families in Texas.” Cruz “has chosen to obstruct and delay the committee process with petty partisan culture wars all to serve wealthy and well-connected corporations at the cost of working Americans who are struggling to get by,” Schumer said.
At least two of the four Senate Commerce Republicans who lobbyists identified as the likeliest in their party to back the measure – Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Strategic Forces Subcommittee ranking member Deb Fischer of Nebraska -- told reporters Monday night they had serious misgivings about the revised version of the measure. “I think it's going to have to go back to the drawing board,” Wicker said. “I think the administration grossly overcalculated” in its handling of the endorsement Commerce Department, DOD and Joint Chiefs of Staff officials gave S-4207’s changes last week.
Fischer said it was “very disappointing” that DOD officials “didn’t fight harder” in negotiating with Cantwell’s office on the revised S-4207 “to get what they really needed to defend this country.” She indicated some of her own proposed amendments to the bill would have better reflected what Pentagon officials previously indicated they preferred.