No Telecom Rewrite in 113th Congress, says House Commerce Minority Chief Counsel
There will not be a rewrite of the 1996 Telecom Act “this year or next year,” said Roger Sherman, the House Commerce Committee Democratic chief counsel, during an event Monday hosted by the Practising Law Institute. He said partisan divisions are a chief hurdle to achieving broad telecom reform: “Nothing is going to happen that is not bipartisan,” he said. The 2014 reauthorization of the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act (STELA) could present “some opportunities” for piecemeal legislative fixes to current telecom law, he said. “But that is dangerous and could become bogged down. We don’t want to bog something down that can get through.”
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"Smart regulation is what we should be striving for,” said Sherman. “If there are outdated rules that make no sense we should absolutely get rid of them.” But minority members are “nervous” about eliminating the FCC’s role in regulating the telecom marketplace, said Sherman. “It is important to have people in place who understand the technology and are able to call technical fouls,” said Sherman.
Comprehensive video reform is looking less likely following the departure of former Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., to head the Heritage Foundation, said Public Knowledge co-founder Gigi Sohn, who also spoke at the event. DeMint was a vocal supporter of deregulation and authored the Next Generation Television Marketplace Act (S-2008).
Sherman said minority members are seeking to preserve and advance six “core values” related to telecom and media legislation this Congress: competition, diversity, transparency, public safety, universal access and oversight. Democrats believe there continues to be “regulatory overhang” with the FCC’s “light touch” open Internet order, and are closely eyeing the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit as it hears combined appeals by Verizon Wireless and MetroPCS challenging the FCC’s authority to impose the regulations. House Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., recently said she would introduce net neutrality legislation if the court overturns the order.
Bringing more spectrum to the market is important to Democrats, said Sherman -- including federal spectrum. Once identified and brought to market, Democrats want to “make sure competitors and existing entrants have access to that spectrum,” he said. Democrats see a need to conduct “rigorous oversight” over the development and deployment of FirstNet as well as broader oversight over the FCC, he said. Democrats are “good with” FCC process reform, but oppose efforts to disable the agency, said Sherman. “When you tie the agency up into administrative knots … it would treat the agency like no other agency,” he said. “If we can avoid that we are up for process reform.” Finally, it is “inconceivable” that Congress won’t implement something to protect the nation’s cybersecurity, he said.
It’s “crazy” to apply outdated legislation to the Internet, said Verizon Senior Vice President-Federal Government Relations Peter Davidson. “There is not a worse example of obsolete law than what we have in this Internet area,” said Davidson at the event. Davidson urged Congress to start with “baby steps” and begin modernizing the laws that regulate the video marketplace. NCTA Executive Vice President James Assey urged lawmakers to tread cautiously with any attempts to regulate such a quickly evolving marketplace. “We are fooling ourselves when it comes to areas of the law that we are going to be able to make long-lasting predictions about what the future will be like,” he said. “We are at least as likely to get it wrong as we [are to] get it right.”