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Telecomweb news break

July 6, 2006 Thursday

Communications Reform Bill Gets Fast Tracked

In a rarely seen legislative maneuver, the sweeping communications reform bill recently approved by a key Senate committee (TelecomWeb news break, June 30) has been re-designated as a House of Representatives proposal, ostensibly to accelerate the floor voting process during this Congressional session.

After three days of markup covering 214 amendments, not only was the Senate's Communications, Consumers' Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006 renamed the Advanced Telecommunications and Opportunity Reform (ATOR) Act, but the bill's S. 2686 designation also was refiled in the House hopper as H.R. 5252 - the same numerical designation as the smaller, less-comprehensive Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement (COPE) Act of 2006 already heading for the House floor.

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), the Senate Commerce chairman who has vowed to get the bill passed but has expressed some concern about its floor vote chances, employed the seldom-used re-numbering/refilling parliamentary technique to speed up Congressional consideration of the massive 135-page, 20,000-word bill that was approved by a 15-7 committee vote last week.

As a result of the maneuver, House members will not be required to hold separate hearings on the Senate-originated bill, but instead the two H.R. 5252 proposals can head directly into House-Senate conference committee sessions for federal lawmakers to hammer out terms toward a single piece of legislation acceptable to both bodies. "It is one of the legislative tools that can be used to quicken passage," said Joseph Benckle, a spokesman for the Senate committee.

A wide range of issues on the bills still could provide hot debate and tough negotiation points for the legislators, including national video franchise streamlining, universal service fund linkages with broadband deployment, network neutrality, Internet Protocol services regulation, spectrum management policies, antitrust measures, telecom taxation exemptions and local/state/federal jurisdictional questions.

Most recently, several leaders of municipal government associations expressed their disappointment with several provisions included in the new H.R.5252 bill as reported out of committee, despite having had discussions with the staff prior to the markup. In a joint letter to Stevens and Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, committee co-chairman, some unacceptable items were listed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National League of Cities, the National Association of Counties, the Government Finance Officers Association and the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors.

They dislike the committee's adoption of two taxation-oriented amendments - one disallowing any new cellular telephone taxes (passed by a 21-1 vote) and another creating a permanent moratorium on Internet access service taxes (passed by 19-3 vote - and the rejection of an amendment mandating network build out requirements on new video franchisees (defeated by a 12-10 vote). Besides saying that the lack of a reasonable build-out requirement is of grave concern, the groups also are unhappy with a modification of the "video service provider" definition to exclude satellite service integrated with landline services (something that would benefit the likes of AT&T and other telcos or cablecos trying to combine the two services).

"It would be unfortunate if the bill's positive attributes were unable to garner floor time for the lack of having sixty senators supporting consideration," the groups' letter remarked about a possible close call in floor voting. "However, unless we receive assurances that the tax amendments and the modification to the video service provider definition will be removed during floor debate, we will have to urge our members to oppose the bill. Build-out will be the subject of other floor amendments."

Two weeks ago, the National Governors Association (NGA) also said it opposed Congressional efforts to preempt state authority in the Senate bill. "The cumulative impact of these measures on states' sovereignty runs counter to our federal system while applying a federally-mandated "one-size-fits-all" approach to a state and local issue," NGA maintained. "The potential fiscal and legal impacts on states of these wide-ranging preemptive measures and pending amendments have never been the subject of any Congressional hearing or debate in this Congress. The measure's sweeping preemptions threaten the long-standing partnerships between the federal government and states in determining the nation's communications policy."