WASHINGTON-The Clinton administration and federal regulators have promised the public safety community a chunk of TV channels 60-69 in exchange for supporting efforts to free up that spectrum soon for auctions. The deal appears to circumvent normal rulemaking processes and calls into question the relationship between the executive branch and the independent agency that regulates the telecommunications industry.
The arrangement, confirmed by government and industry sources, adds a new twist to the spectrum controversy accompanying the transition from analog to digital television.
President Clinton added fuel to the fire by proposing a little more than a week ago to fund school reconstruction with $5 billion from the sale of TV channels 60-69, despite the fact that federal regulators haven’t decided whether that spectrum is for sale.
A House Commerce Committee staffer said the White House action angered some in Congress, adding that lawmakers did not get advance notice of the president’s education initiative.
The Federal Communications Commission, which floated the TV auction idea a few weeks ago, is expected to officially propose the plan this Thursday. FCC Chairman Reed Hundt and Commissioner Susan Ness appear to be more enthusiastic about the measure than do Commissioners James Quello and Rachelle Chong.
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and several key Republicans and Democrats last month called on the FCC to adopt final digital TV transition rules by next April.
The action was seen by some as a snub to Robert Dole (R-Kan.) who resigned as Senate Majority Leader last month to challenge President Clinton this fall, and to Larry Pressler (R-S.D.), chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. After Dole refused to lift his hold on the telecommunications reform bill because of what he considered a multibillion dollar giveaway to broadcasters, Lott, Pressler, House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and House Commerce Committee Chairman Thomas Bliley (R-Va.) pledged in late January not to allow digital TV licenses to be issued before Congress completes spectrum reform legislation.
Pressler, who has authored a draft spectrum bill, declined to sign the June 19 letter to the FCC. His legislation is not expected to move forward until next year.
TV channels 60-69 are lightly used by broadcast licensees across the country. The spectrum is adjacent to 800 MHz mobile wireless services and therefore considered quite valuable given the nearly $20 billion worth of wireless licenses sold by the federal government the past two years.
The broadcast industry argues the auction of TV channels 60-69 would complicate the migration to digital television over the next 10 to 15 years.
In a July 1 letter to Hundt, the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials International Inc. asked the agency “to release substantial portions of UHF channels 60-69 for new public safety communications technologies.”
An industry advisory committee headed by Washington, D.C., communications lawyer Philip Verveer, a former Justice Department antitrust official with ties to the Clinton administration, has tentatively concluded that police, fire, emergency medical and other public safety agencies will need 79 megahertz through 2010.
Channels 60-69 comprise 60 megahertz of spectrum, an asset worth as much as $10 billion. There has been talk, too, of setting aside some TV auction proceeds to fund public broadcasting.
The wireless telecommunications industry and various public interest groups support TV broadcast auctions.
That the FCC and Clinton administration have promised public safety some of the analog TV spectrum appears to raise problems on two levels.
First, the FCC would be required to conduct rulemakings to decide whether that spectrum could be taken from broadcast and, if so, which services would receive how much.
Second, the extent to which there was any coordination between the White House and the FCC would seem to compromise the commission’s status as an independent agency. Moreover, it might appear inappropriate for the president to score political points during an election year by touting an education program that has the potential of prejudicing telecom policymaking at the FCC.
The relationship between the FCC and the White House has been subject to scrutiny before. Hundt went to prep school in Washington, D.C., with Vice President Al Gore and kept close ties with Gore during the Tennessee Democrat’s political career. The FCC chairman attended Yale Law School during the time Clinton was there.
