WASHINGTON-While the wireless industry’s attention was focused last week on new products and gizmos in Las Vegas, Capitol Hill was working on legislation that could impact the telecommunications industry in a variety of ways.
The Senate Banking Committee on Thursday passed by a vote of 19-1 a bill that would allow the president to restrict the export of dual-use items-if there is a significant national security or foreign policy reason-but would not restrict the export of mass-marketed items.
The House telecommunications and Internet subcommittee on Wednesday passed by voice vote a bill that would protect individuals, families and Internet service providers from e-mail spam.
Also on Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed by voice vote a bill that would relieve unnecessary burdens from the nation’s 2-percent local exchange carriers.
Export controls
Sen. Richard Shelby (D-Ala.) was the lone voice in the wilderness opposing the bill sponsored by Sen. Michael Enzi (R-Wyo.). Shelby’s concern centered on the lack of a Blue Ribbon Commission in the bill. According to Shelby, Vice President Richard Cheney had expressed support for such a commission, but Amy Dunathan, senior professional staff member, told the committee that White House staff had not mentioned this in extensive negotiations that led to the Bush administration supporting the bill.
“I should mention also, Senator, that the Blue-Ribbon-Commission concept has not been brought up by the administration in the staff discussions of the last week,” said Dunathan.
Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas), chairman of the Banking Committee, said he thought the bill could be amended on the Senate Floor to include the blue-ribbon panel.
Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) has signaled his support for such a panel.
Thompson and Gramm have been at loggerheads over export-control legislation, with Thompson opposed and Gramm in support.
“The bill is a simple bill in the sense that it is based on a belief that in the world we live in today-where we want to be the leader of high-technology deployment and at the same time we want to protect those technologies that are protectable-we have got to build a higher fence around a smaller number of things. If something is mass marketed, if you can go to Radio Shack and buy it, it is too late to protect it. In trying to protect many things, we end up not effectively protecting anything,” said Gramm.
The Banking Committee had been scheduled to mark up the bill, officially known as the Export Administration Act of 2001, on March 15, but held off when the Bush administration expressed some concerns. A letter from National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice indicated those concerns had been addressed by an amendment also passed by the committee.
“The administration has proposed a number of changes to [the bill]. The Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Commerce and I agree that these changes will strengthen the president’s national security and foreign policy authorities to control dual-use exports in a balanced manner, which will permit U.S. companies to compete more effectively in the global marketplace,” said Rice in a March 21 letter.
The current export-control regime expires on Aug. 20 so there is hope that this legislation can be passed by the Senate and move on to the House for consideration and passage before then. Enzi said he does not know when the Senate will act on the bill.
Anti-spam bill
Just as the public at large is starting to adopt mobile devices for e-mail, the House telecommunications and Internet subcommittee passed a bill meant to curb one of the most annoying parts of the wireline e-mail world-spam, or unsolicited e-mails.
“The Internet is changing our lives-largely for the better. But as consumers, we should have the power to stop getting junk e-mail on our computers or on the computers of our children. Some estimates are that over one-third of junk e-mail is pornographic and currently parents are helpless to stop this from entering their homes. This bill gives parents and consumers the power to say enough is enough and close their inbox to annoying and obscene junk e-mail,” said Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.).
A version of Wilson’s bill passed the House of Representatives last year by a vote of 427-1, but stalled in the Senate.
This year changes were made to address concerns of the Direct Marketing Association, but DMA officials apparently are not mollified and are still vowing to work against the bill. Also against the bill are the financial services and insurance industries.
The American Insurance Association “supports the goal of addressing abusive and unwanted spam on the Internet, but the bill as currently drafted creates more problems that it solves. [It] would potentially prevent companies from providing their customers with the convenience and savings of communicating electronically rather than via fax or regular mail,” said John Savercool, AIA vice president for federal affairs.
AIA also listed five major concerns about the bill. These comprise the enforcement authority, the narrowing of the definition of existing customer-business relationships, the weak pre-emption language that could allow for even stricter state laws, onerous requirements for electronic communications that do not exist for non-electronic communications, and allowing Internet service providers to establish national spamming policies.
Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La.), chairman of the House Commerce Committee, urged those opposed to the bill to come up with concrete suggestions to improve the bill.
“Let me challenge DMA and those that have new concerns with this bill … to submit suggestions for improvements. This bill has been changed, has been improved. [We are] prepared to work with groups that may still have old concerns or have come up with new concerns,” said Tauzin.
Wilson was less optimistic as she talked with reporters after the markup that an accommodation with DMA could be reached. “DMA is about direct marketing. This is not a bill they are necessarily going to like,” she said.
The bill must still pass the full House Commerce Committee and the House Judiciary Committee before returning to the House floor.
Report relief
In a move meant to save small rural wireline phone companies money so that they spend it on deploying advanced services, the House passed a bill that will remove price and merger-review regulation from companies that control less than 2 percent of the nation’s telephone lines. Companies would only be relieved of merger-review obligation if after the deal is completed, the new entity still controlled less than 2 percent of the nation’s lines, said its sponsor, Rep. Barbara Cubin (R-Wyo.). A companion bill in the Senate has not been introduced.
