WASHINGTON-The 104th Congress that promised revolution two years ago retreated for the campaign trail last week after Republicans gave into the Clinton administration on a sweeping budget bill that spends money on telecommunications regulation, digital wiretap implementation and trade, and raises dollars from a new spectrum auction.
The legislation, signed by President Clinton on the eve of the new fiscal year, averted another government shutdown and spared Republicans the kind of criticism that accompanied last year’s budget battle with the White House.
In fact, so eager were GOP lawmakers to leave town and begin fighting to retain control of Congress that they gave into $6.5 billion of White House domestic programs. Of that amount, $2.9 billion will be paid for by the sale of spectrum at 2305-2220 MHz and 2345-2360 MHz.
Following the House’s lead, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Larry Pressler (R-S.D.) and Ernest Hollings (D-S.C.), ranking minority member of the panel, urged fellow members to leave auction policy to them.
“We cannot support the precedent of using auctions as an `open checkbook’ to fund the `issue du jour,”‘ the two lawmakers said in a Sept. 20 letter to Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), Senate Minority Leader Thomas Daschle (D-S.D.), Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Mark Hatfield (R-Ore.) and Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), ranking minority member on appropriations.
Congress also agreed to deposit $60 million into a trust fund to reimburse wireless and wireline carriers for making digital wiretap network modifications required by the Communications and Law Enforcement Act.
It is the first money CALEA has received since its enactment two years ago.
CALEA was authorized at $500 million for fiscal years 1995-1998, but until now had not received any money.
The “Telecommunications Carrier Compliance Fund” was approved in lieu of direct appropriations for CALEA to get around opposition from Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.) and other House members. Barr and others signed onto the trust fund once the FBI was subjected to a comprehensive implementation plan that Barr helped craft.
The wireless telecommunications industry has been frustrated in dealing with the FBI on digital wiretap implementation, but the two sides continue to work together on legal, fiscal and technical issues.
After the start-up $60 million infusion for fiscal 1997, CALEA will get monies from unobligated, year-end funds from intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who voted against the spending bill that incorporated all vetoed or incomplete government appropriations, said the CALEA trust fund should not have been included in the budget bill.
“While I have always opposed unfunded mandates, many do in fact exist and many companies, especially many small businesses, are excessively burdened by such unfunded mandates,” said McCain. “I am concerned that while these small businessmen and women continue to be burdened, we are establishing a trust fund to pay some of our nation’s largest, most profitable companies.”
The Federal Communications Commission, for its part, got $189 million for fiscal 1997, a few million dollars more than last year.
An issue that’s attracting more attention and could mushroom into something much bigger next year is FCC relocation to The Portals. Commerce appropriations committees refused to give the FCC the $30 million it requested for the move.
So the General Services Administration asked that the funds be included in the Treasury appropriations bill. And they were. But after complaints from Rep. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and others, the money was pulled.
Meanwhile, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration received $15 million. The information infrastructure grant program survived with $21.5 million.
The embattled Overseas Private Investment Corp., a congressional chartered political risk insurer that supports wireless projects in Eastern Europe and other regions with emerging economies, got a year’s reprieve after a House vote to kill the program. OPIC received $32 million for administrative expenses.
