WASHINGTON-Congress failed to pass relocation trust fund and wireless enhanced 911 legislation over the weekend, but House and Senate members will try again in early December when lawmakers return for a brief extension of the lame-duck session.
The relocation bill is key to implementation of the Bush third-generation spectrum plan, while the E911 measure is critical to improving delayed rollout of location-based wireless 911 service.
The wireless industry had hoped to see the relocation and E911 measures passed as part of a massive spending bill. While the spending bill was approved, complications prevented the two major wireless bills from being included. That should have been the end of it for the year, but Congress’ inability to pass post-9/11, sweeping intelligence reform legislation-itself a vehicle for realigning the 700 MHz band-means lawmakers will return the second week of December to complete unfinished business.
Lawmakers came up short in efforts to push through legislation to create a grant program for wireless enhanced 911 due to an objection and continued negotiation on an unrelated matter by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), said Jennifer O’Shea, spokeswoman for Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.).
Burns is the main sponsor of the bill that would create a grant program for public-safety answering points to upgrade their 911 systems to allow them to receive location information from wireless phones. McCain is the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, and he has tied passage of the E911 bill to an unrelated piece of legislation regarding a boxing commission.
Lawmakers left town Sunday after passing multi-hundreds of billions of dollars in spending in a bill that weighed more than 10 pounds.
Late Friday, lawmakers were furiously negotiating in an attempt to include the two issues in the Omnibus Appropriations bill-a catchall for all of the spending Congress had yet to pass. But it was not to be.
Still, Congress made progress on other fronts.
Congress late last week passed a four-year extension of the Internet tax moratorium that expired more than a year ago.
“I applaud Congress for their action and for recognizing the significant harm that tax increases can have on the development and deployment of high-tech service offerings. Broadband will continue to have an enormously beneficial impact on how we as a society access and consume information,” said CTIA President Steve Largent. “Broadband holds the promise of revolutionizing the delivery of pertinent information to educators, law-enforcement officials, emergency responders and health-care providers all across America. I am very pleased that this promise will not be interrupted by the imposition of tax increases.”
The compromise passed keeps in place the Internet access taxes that were in place prior to 1998 when the first moratorium was passed. It also allows Wisconsin to collect Internet access taxes for two years and Texas cities to collect franchise fees from telecommunications companies for the use of public lands, said the Information Technology Association of America.
“This legislation corrects more than a year of unfair treatment for consumers on the Internet. This moratorium is good for consumers, good for the economy and good for innovation generally,” said ITAA President Harris Miller.
The Senate also confirmed Jonathan Adelstein-only recently believed to be on his way out-to another term as a member of the Federal Communications Commission for a term expiring June 30, 2008.
“Jonathan has proven himself to be an intelligent, thoughtful and hard-working commissioner, and we certainly look forward to continuing a positive dialogue with him on a host of wireless issues. Throughout his distinguished career in federal government, Commissioner Adelstein has supported policies that promote and foster innovation and competition,” said Largent.
Meantime, the omnibus appropriations bill approved by Congress Nov. 21 included an increase in high-tech (H1-B) visas to 20,000 for graduate students and a two-year increase in funding for the Patent and Trademark Office to reduce the backlog of patent reviews. <
