Walden Giving FCC 'Some Space' on Set-top Box Proceeding
House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., is letting the FCC's set-top box NPRM issue play out without intervening, he told reporters Wednesday. “Let’s see what they’re doing,” Walden said of the proposal. “We’re going to give them some space.”…
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The set-top box NPRM spurred objections from some Democrats as well as Republicans on Capitol Hill (see 1602170051). Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Bill Nelson, D-Fla., was among those raising concerns ahead of the FCC's recent NPRM vote. “The set-top box thing, we’ll see how the whole NPRM comes out,” Walden said. “Obviously we never said go out and create AllVid all over again. There are copyright issues that matter a lot to content providers. There are a lot of very powerful forces watching all sides of that equation that will cause pressure for everybody on the committee.” But he didn’t foresee that any of the friction would cause trouble on the Commerce Committee. “Some it will make it more contentious, some it will be fine,” he said. “It’s just the ebbs and flows of policy debates.” Walden also pushed back on the idea that the FCC’s big-ticket coming items -- overhaul of the Lifeline program and the onset of broadband privacy rules on top of the set-top box proceeding -- would create tension among Commerce Committee lawmakers along the lines of the partisan divide over net neutrality. “We’re in pretty good communication with the FCC on universal service fund reform,” Walden remarked. “We’re watching what they’re doing in Lifeline and all that. To their credit, in the past they have tightened down on some of the abuse. I’ve publicly given [Chairman Tom] Wheeler credit for that. He has. He’s reined it in quite a bit. But they still need to have a common database, they need to have a budget. You can’t let this thing just be open-ended.” The FCC is expected to appear before Walden for a subcommittee hearing next month.