WASHINGTON-Lawmakers return this week to tackle a handful of telecommunications policy and funding issues before adjourning in a month to campaign in House and Senate races.
Appropriations bills will dominate the last month of the 104th Congress. The Federal Communications Commission and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, a unit of the Commerce Department, are still without money for fiscal 1997, which begins Oct. 1. Neither agency will receive the budget hikes sought by the Clinton administration.
The House froze FCC spending at this fiscal year’s $185.6 million level and slightly reduced NTIA’s budget to $51.7 million.
Separately, the House telecommunications subcommittee is expected to hold a hearing this month on new legislation to downsize the FCC. The bill also would end the pioneer’s preference program, require federal agencies to deposit rents from federal property antenna siting into the U.S. treasury and restrict the FCC chairman from traveling more than 50 miles outside of the nation’s capital.
The panel, headed by outgoing chairman Jack Fields (R-Texas), also is scheduled to address international satellite issues and how universal service provisions of the 1996 telecommunications reform bill are to be implemented.
There is a move afoot to restructure the International Maritime Satellite Organization and the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization.
“I think the name of the game is defensive ball,” said Thomas Wheeler, president of the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association. Wheeler said some telecom sectors, unhappy with the recent FCC interconnection ruling or other aspects of the telecom reform bill’s implementation, may seek relief from Congress. The wireless telecommunications industry won major concessions from the FCC in that decision.
The Senate Commerce appropriations committee, banking on higher regulatory user fees, bumped up the FCC to $192.5 million but slashed NTIA’s budget from $54 million to $35.2 million after virtually decimating the Telecommunications and Infrastructure Assistance Program. TIAP provides matching funds-seed money-for innovative wireless and wireline projects for schools, libraries, nonprofit groups and government agencies.
The Senate will vote in the next two weeks on its Commerce appropriations bill, which includes a series of counter terrorism measures crafted by committee Chairman Judd Gregg (R-N.H.).
Sen. Ernest Hollings (D-S.C.), ranking minority member of that panel, added an amendment to permit expanded wiretap authority at full committee markup of the bill.
Both the House and Senate have proposed allowing law enforcement and intelligence agencies to contribute excess, year-end monies to a fund that would reimburse wireless and wireline carriers for modifying their networks as required by the 1994 digital wiretap bill. Congress has failed to provide direct funding to implement that legislation-officially known as the Communications Assistance and Law Enforcement Act-despite the fact lawmakers authorized $500 billion for fiscal years 1995 to 1998.
Telecom carriers, regardless of funding, have to ensure their systems are technically capable to accommodate court-approved FBI wiretap requests. But service providers are not obligated to expand wiretap capacity to meet law enforcement needs if CALEA monies are not available.
Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Joseph Biden (D-Del.), ranking minority member of the panel, are expected to offer another antiterrorism measure shortly.
The House antiterrorism bill was stripped of expanded wiretap authority, one of nine antiterrorism measures sought by the Clinton administration in the aftermath of the deadly Olympic Park pipe bomb and the TWA Flight 800 explosion.
Democrats may attempt to use antiterrorism legislation as a wedge issue in this fall’s presidential election to paint the GOP as soft on terrorism. Some Republicans, like Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.), and civil liberty advocates argue that antiterrorism initiatives, such as expanded electronic surveillance and digital wiretap funding, threaten constitutional rights and are unnecessary in light of the FBI’s handling of the Waco and Ruby Ridge incidents and the agency’s involvement in the Filegate controversy at the White House.
Spectrum reform legislation drafted by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Larry Pressler (R-S.D.) will likely not progress any further, but will reappear early next year.
As for FCC and NTIA budgets, the numbers may be meaningless. First, it is unclear whether there is enough time for the House and Senate to agree on a Commerce appropriations bill. And even if a compromise can be reached, the legislation is likely to be vetoed by Clinton, in part, because of cuts in government-private sector technology programs.
The most likely scenario, as envisioned by House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas), is that all incomplete or vetoed appropriations measures will be rolled into a single spending bill that keeps budgets at 1996 levels through next March.
Republicans suffered the brunt of the political damage in the great budget battle with the White House, which led two government shutdowns-something the GOP does not want to repeat in election season.
Elsewhere, there is no indication whether the Senate will take up Clinton’s nomination of Regina Keeney, chief of the FCC’s Common Carrier Bureau and former Wireless Telecommunications Bureau head, for the Republican FCC seat vacated by Andrew Barrett in April.
One observer suggested Clinton missed a big opportunity by making a recess appointment. Had the president done so, Keeney would be on board today. And, if re-elected, Clinton could appoint her to a permanent, five-year term. Even though Keeney enjoys wide support from industry and lawmakers from both political parties (from her days as senior GOP communications counsel to the Senate Commerce Committee), she may have difficulty getting a hearing anytime soon with the presidency on the line and with little time to conduct legislative business. Keeney’s biggest liability may be backing from FCC Chairman Reed Hundt, an unpopular figure on Capitol Hill.
Clinton, whose double-digit lead over Dole dropped after the Republican National Convention earlier this month, could provide enough momentum and coattails to possibly enable Democrats to regain control of the House. The Senate is safer for the GOP.
That would reinstate Reps. John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Edward Markey (D-Mass.) as the top telecom power brokers in the House and end the brief, two-year reign of House Commerce Committee Chairman Thomas Bliley (R-Va.).
But the odds are with the GOP to keep its hold on Congress and with Clinton to become the first Democratic president since Franklin Roosevelt to win a second term in the White House.
