[Ecommerce] Stevens Bill Fast Track Maneuvers!

[Seth Johnson]

Copyright 2006 Access Intelligence, LLC.
All Rights Reserved
Telecomweb news break

July 6, 2006 Thursday

LENGTH: 762 words

HEADLINE: Communications Reform Bill Gets Fast Tracked

BODY:


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."


Celia Viggo Wexler
Vice President for Advocacy
202-736-5745