OPPONENTS OF TAUZIN-DINGELL BILL PUSH FOR MORE TIME
Opponents of Bell company data relief bill put on show of solidarity and attacked measure’s merits at Tues. news conference, but they were very quiet on what tactics they could use to defeat it, except procedural objections, with time running out before Thurs.’s House Telecom Subcommittee markup (CD April 24 p2). USTA, on other hand, made very clear that its rhetoric would ignore criticism of bills and focus on critics, which it said were fronts for AT&T’s attempt to protect cable Internet business. House Commerce Committee Chmn. Tauzin (R-La.) and ranking Democrat Dingell (Mich.) were poised to reintroduce last year’s HR-2420 just after our deadline, when House reconvened.
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“We haven’t had a chance to lay the groundwork for our amendments,” Bell opponent told us when asked why he wasn’t talking strategy. “The process hasn’t lent itself to openness,” opponent on Hill said, referring to decision to hold hearing on bill Wed., less than 24 hours after its introduction, and markup less than 24 hours after that: “We don’t feel any obligation to show our cards.” Hill opponent said to expect “concerns about the process” to be expressed by “a lot of members” at today’s Commerce Committee hearing. Such talk is seen to lay groundwork for convincing Subcommittee members to push for delay of markup, perhaps until next Tues. “That’s a joke,” Tauzin spokesman Ken Johnson said of “railroading” rhetoric used by International Communications Assn. Gen. Counsel Brian Moir. “These groups have known since the first day Billy Tauzin became chairman of the Commerce Committee this bill was coming. They've had their talking points ready for months.”
Indeed, if members of Competitive Broadband Coalition (CBC) were caught in any way unawares by introduction of Tauzin-Dingell bill, they didn’t show it at news conference, where each got chance to rip into measure. CompTel Pres. Russell Frisby called it the “Broadband Derailment Act.” ALTS Pres. John Windhausen said CLECs had created 100,000 jobs, and all would be endangered by bill. Various speakers said Bells shouldn’t be given exemption from Sec. 271 requirements for long distance data or state regulators would have no means to enforce local competition rules. “271 is all we've got,” NARUC Gen. Counsel Brad Ramsey said. NARUC was among several groups sending letter to Commerce Committee members urging rejection of bill.
Ignoring all those arguments and people making them, USTA focused on AT&T. “AT&T’s lobbyists are asking Congress to protect them from competition for high-speed Internet service,” USTA Pres. Gary Lytle said. “We encourage members of Congress not be deceived by AT&T.” USTA spokesman said his group’s strategy for responding to CBC would be “identifying them for what they are -- AT&T is fronting them.” AT&T spokesman said his company was indeed member of CBC and very interested in proceedings, but “there’s a pretty broad cross-section of people in the industry represented… USTA is trying to obscure the issue.” He wouldn’t say how much of funding for CBC in general or this week’s lobbying efforts came from AT&T, saying that was consistent with AT&T’s usual nondisclosure policy.
In any case, groups not normally associated with AT&T attended CBC news conference and denounced bill, including NARUC and NASUCA. ("It’s strange they're so out in front” of individual state regulators, USTA spokesman said of NARUC.) Moir said USTA had situation backward: “The legitimate consumer groups are all on [this] side of the fence. Rent-a-groups will be at the Bell briefings.”
Competitors gave support to broadband tax credit bill (S-88, HR-267) as alternative if Congress is set on passing broadband deployment bill. ALTS’s Windhausen said his members wouldn’t reap benefits from that bill since they didn’t have any profits, but it was “right kind of thinking.” CompTel Pres. Russell Frisby said “I find it interesting that the Bells haven’t been as active on the tax bill” and suggested their “real concerns aren’t about the digital divide.”
Meanwhile, as if to underscore different politics in House and Senate, 4 Senators wrote FCC to ask for greater, not lesser, scrutiny of Bell company Sec. 271 applications for long distance entry and renewed attention to market-opening mandates of Sec. 251. “The Commission should exercise its authority,” said Sens. Hollings (D-S.C.), Stevens (R-Alaska), Burns (R-Mont.) and Inouye (D-Hawaii). “Congress did not leave this decision [Sec. 271] to the states, and neither should the Commission.” In particular, they said, FCC shouldn’t hesitate to apply public interest test, given “current precarious state of the competitive carriers.”