WASHINGTON-Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle’s (D-S.D.) move to pre-empt the planning commission here from deciding on Bell Atlantic Mobile’s Rock Creek Park tower applications set off protests from local officials, environmentalists and others last week, setting the stage for a potentially nasty battle on Capitol Hill in coming weeks.
While local in nature, the long-running Rock Creek Park tower spat has taken on national significance because it symbolizes the federal-local jurisdictional tension being played out in communities across the nation and because the debate (and dropped cell phone calls) is taking place in the backyard of lawmakers who set U.S. telecom policy.
Daschle’s Rock Creek tower amendment to the District of Columbia appropriations bill was approved by the Senate on the same day-July 1-that the National Capital Planning Commission heard testimony from opponents and backers of the BAM towers. The NPCP delayed making a final decision.
“The congresswoman regrets that, with no notice to her, District officials, or the Park Service, the Senate short-circuited normal federal procedures for determining whether cellular antennas should be located in Rock Creek Park,” said Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.).
A spokeswoman for D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams said he “continues to ask Congress to honor the will of the leadership of the city.”
A companion bill marked up by the House D.C. appropriations panel last Wednesday did not include tower language. A move by Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) to offer a less sweeping tower measure did not materialize because the many stakeholders in the controversy could not agree on language.
A House-Senate conference committee will try to reconcile the two D.C. budget bills. The fate of the Daschle amendment likely will be decided there.
Speaking with reporters after the House mark-up, Holmes said she met with Daschle, and he is open to accommodating local concerns on the tower issue.
Last Monday, local citizens, representatives from the D.C. government and the Sierra Club, and actress Linda Evans staged a rally in front of the Interior Department to protest the Daschle tower provision.
Afterward they met with David Hayes, deputy undersecretary for policy at Interior to voice their concerns.
“The NPCP is the best body to reconcile the competing demands for better cell phone service and protection of the park,” the D.C. City Council said in letters to House and Senate D.C. appropriators. “The members and staff of the NCPC are today poised to begin a study. The goal should be to ensure the best public safety in Rock Creek Park. Reaching this goal should not be driven instead by one private carrier.”
The uproar appeared to take Daschle by surprise. The South Dakota lawmaker took issue with a Washington Post article headlined, “D.C. Loses Voice on Phone Antennas.” He responded with a letter to the editor, saying the lack of mobile phone service in parts of Rock Creek Park “is a public-safety hazard.”
“Congress should be responsive to the concerns of District officials and residents. But in the end, Congress has a responsibility to promote pubic safety on federal lands throughout the United States,” said Daschle.
BAM, whose parent company Bell Atlantic Corp. is one of the top telecom political campaign contributors, has been fighting for five years to fill in holes in its Rock Creek analog cellular coverage.
For the longest time, BAM met resistance from the National Park Service. When the Park Service finally agreed this year to the two 100-foot towers, following heavy pressure from Capitol Hill, the National Capital Planning Commission became the obstacle.
In April and again this month, NCPC delayed final rulings on BAM tower applications because it wanted more information on siting alternatives and on public-safety claims.
“I guess if you’re someone who’s opposed, you’re just going to be opposed [to the towers],” said Audrey Shaeffer, a BAM spokeswoman. Shaeffer’s sentiment is echoed by others who believe some tower opponents are not serious about compromise.
In addition to the Park Service, the proposed BAM-Rock Creek Park towers have support from the citizens, police and the D.C. Hospital Association.
DOD spectrum bills
Elsewhere, a House appropriations subcommittee approved a $2.6 billion accelerated auction provision as part of a military construction bill last week. The measure, requiring the sale of 36 megahertz at 700-800 MHz this year instead of after Jan. 1, 2001, mirrors a provision in a Department of Defense appropriations bill recently passed by the Senate.
There was legislative movement on telecom-related provisions in other DOD bills that would give the Pentagon priority access to shared spectrum and to the satellite-based global positioning system.
House telecommunications subcommittee Chairman Billy Tauzin (R-La.) tried, but failed, to get spectrum priority language dropped from the Senate DOD authorization bill during conference negotiations, according to an industry source. That promoted a shift in strategy late last week toward compromise language upon which industry and the Pentagon might agree.
