WASHINGTON-With Congress stuck in town at least another week and prospects growing that pending legislation will be rolled into one or two catch-all spending bills, the fate of several key wireless bills remains unclear.
GOP lawmakers particularly are anxious to wrap up the 106th Congress and hit the campaign trail, given that their control of the House and, to a lesser extent, the Senate is threatened in this fall’s election.
Democrats have more to gain politically by keeping Congress in overtime, leverage they-and the Clinton White House-are using to extract concessions from Republicans.
High on the wireless industry’s agenda is a bill to repeal the 3-percent federal excise tax on telecom service.
The 3-percent telecom tax repeal is tied to a legislative branch-treasury-postal appropriations bill that the Senate defeated last month, but which could come back up for another vote any time.
Steven Berry, top lobbyist for the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, suggested Senate Minority Leader Thomas Daschle (D-S.D.) is partly to blame for insisting that the telecom tax repeal be part of a broader tax package.
The Clinton administration does not oppose an end to the century-old tax on talking, but it has expressed concerns about how the loss of billions of dollars-a consequence of the repeal-would be offset.
“My feeling is this has nothing to do with taxes. It (the telecom tax repeal measure) has become a bargaining chip. The Republicans want it and the Democrats have it,” said Berry. “It would be nice if the Democrats would look at the regressive nature of this tax.”
Daschle’s press office declined to return calls on Friday.
President Clinton on Friday was expected to sign a second, stop-gap spending bill to keep the government running through Oct. 14. When the new fiscal year began on Oct. 1, only two of 13 appropriations bills had been enacted into law. Nothing had changed as of Friday afternoon.
Given that fact and the Republicans’ desire to wrap up work for the year, congressional appropriators are working with the White House behind the scenes to craft an omnibus spending package that could enable lawmakers to leave town in the next week or so.
Such a bill, which would include funding for the Federal Communications Commission and slew of other agencies, is expected to be taken up by the House and Senate this week.
For weeks, the wireless industry has been closely focussed on one of the appropriations bills to be included in the omnibus legislation.
The Commerce-Justice-State appropriations bill, besides funding the FCC, includes a provision to limit foreign ownership of U.S. telecom firms. The measure would effectively kill Deutsche Telekom AG’s $50.7 billion purchase of VoiceStream Wireless.
In addition, the spending bill-until last week-had an amendment enabling the FCC to reclaim wireless licenses mired in bankruptcy. The rider was penned by Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) to kill bankrupt NextWave Telecom Inc.’s chances of keeping its mobile-phone licenses, permits worth billions of dollars.
Two Fridays ago, House and Senate leaders agreed to strip out the Gregg amendment and decided not to pursue legislation favoring NextWave or any other bankrupt mobile-phone firm.
While time is short, several other pieces of wireless-related legislation remain in play. The House Commerce Committee last week passed a truth-in-billing measure, which is designed to give consumers more detailed accounting of charges on monthly bills. A related bill that would institute a bill-and-keep approach for wireless carriers is hung up in the House Commerce Committee but still has an outside chance of getting approved before Congress adjourns.
Meanwhile, the Senate Judiciary Committee last week passed a bill to combat cyber crimes. The legislation, among other things, gives law enforcement authority to deploy wiretaps to investigate and prosecute computer hackers.
It is unclear whether the Senate legislation will conflict with a bill recently passed by the House Judiciary Committee that strengthens the legal standard for law enforcement to obtain cell-phone tracking information and that curbs FBI deployment of the e-mail sniffing tool known as Carnivore.
Another live bill-backed by outgoing Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) and included in a bill sent to floor last week by Senate Finance Committee Chairman William Roth (R-Del.)-would give tax incentives for firms providing high-speed, broadband Internet service to rural and high-cost areas.
CTIA’s Berry said the bill, while making wireless carriers eligible for tax breaks, appears biased toward fiber optic Internet service providers.
Wireless bills that appear dead for the year include measures to bolster local regulation of antenna siting and fund mobile-phone-cancer research; to prohibit mobile-phone spam; to require mobile-phone service standards and FCC oversight of consumer complaints; to require nondiscriminatory telecom access to government and nongovernment buildings; to impose Internet privacy guidelines; and to let Bell telephone companies provide Internet service outside states.
As a final matter, it appears the Senate will not confirm FCC Commissioner Susan Ness for a second term. This means Ness must leave office shortly.
