Hill Closure on Health Care Reform May Not Intensify Telecom Activity

Passage of health care reform legislation over the weekend frees Congress to finish the oft-delayed satellite TV reauthorization and may also loosen bottlenecks that held back other legislation, industry officials said Monday. But Congress won’t necessarily intensify telecom legislation efforts, they said. An ongoing debate among Hill leadership is whether, in the wake of passing health care, they should lay low or come out swinging, said an industry lobbyist.

The health-care debate took some of congressional leaders’ attention from telecom issues, said Hill and industry officials. Health care was a huge priority for Senate Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and it delayed action on telecom, said a Senate GOP staffer. Senate Republicans hope the resolution of health care and the recent release of the National Broadband Plan mean an increase telecom activity in days to come, the Hill staffer said. House Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., was also deeply involved in the health-care debate, said a telecom executive. But lawmakers may want to avoid contentious matters a while, the source said.

House leadership wanted to finish health care reform before considering a Senate-passed jobs bill containing the satellite TV reauthorization (HR-4213), a Democratic aide said last week. The House passed a separate bill (HR-4851) including a temporary extension until the end of April (CD March 18 p9), and the Senate added that bill to its legislative calendar on Friday. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., asked for unanimous consent but Republicans objected, said a Reid spokeswoman. “We will try to do so again this week.” It’s possible that at least the temporary extension, and maybe both bills, will pass this week, said industry lobbyists.

Cybersecurity legislation has a good chance of moving forward soon, said industry officials. T he issue seems to have approached “critical mass,” with a great “sense of urgency” surrounding it in Congress, said Washington Research Group analyst Paul Gallant. Legislation by Sens. Rockefeller and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, is scheduled for committee markup Wednesday morning. Reid has shown interest in the legislation and has been actively coordinating efforts across committees, said Senate and industry officials. Congress also has bipartisan support for spectrum inventory legislation, which awaits floor votes in both the House and Senate. The House bill doesn’t require floor time because it can be passed under suspension of the rules, said a House GOP aide.

House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., is expected to soon introduce bills on privacy and the Universal Service Fund. Boucher has said he intends to do USF before privacy. Industry officials said they didn’t expect to see the USF bill before Congress leaves for its spring recess starting Friday. However, it could appear in the “next month or so,” said Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance President Curt Stamp.

For communications issues, the health care debate had mostly been a bottleneck at the leadership level, said Gallant. Work on telecom operated on a separate track and committees with jurisdiction had the staff bandwidth to work on telecom simultaneously, he said. Committees still may have had difficulty getting leadership to focus on their issues, coordinating with the White House and the other chamber of Congress while the health care debate was going strong, he said.

A House GOP aide said the health care debate never got in the way of committees’ telecom work. Waiting for the National Broadband Plan was the biggest obstacle, the aide said. Complications at the Senate leadership level were to blame for the delay in passing the satellite TV reauthorization, which committees had finished before distant signal licenses expired in late February, the aide said.

There are other possible distractions in the coming months, especially the upcoming election, said industry observers. The lead up to November elections historically has meant a light summer, said Stamp. It’s not a sure thing the trend will repeat this summer because the health care debate proved that this Congress will work even through weekends and holidays when necessary, he said. Work on financial reform could take time on the floor schedule, and climate change is still “hanging out there” and could become the next big legislative priority, Stamp said. Congress also still has work to do on appropriations, said an industry lobbyist.

The broadband plan could lead to a series of congressional oversight hearings on specific issues, which could eat up the calendar for the rest of the year, said industry officials. It would make sense to hold multiple hearings to focus more intensely on specific issues, but nothing has been finalized, said the House GOP aide. General hearings on the plan are scheduled for Tuesday afternoon in the Senate Commerce Committee and Thursday in the House Communications Subcommittee.

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Media and telecom companies said they didn’t lobby on health care reform or declined to discuss their efforts. News Corp., Time Warner and Time Warner Cable were among those uninvolved, officials said. Some industries, including broadcasting, don’t have a “direct link” to the health care bill, a broadcast official said. Some stations benefitted from revenue from running advocacy ads on the issue, the person said. Representatives of AT&T, Verizon, NAB, NCTA and cable and broadcast unions part of the Communications Workers of America had no comment.

Little involvement from large media and telecom companies reflects their interest in other issues directly affecting them and membership in groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable that did spend significant time on the issue, a communications industry lobbyist said. “The Washington offices tend to focus solely on the bread and butter issues.” Comcast’s CEO had a reason for skipping a Dec. 3 meeting on jobs and economic growth, he told President Barack Obama. The cable operator agreed to buy control of NBC Universal that day, Brian Roberts wrote. Had he attended the meeting, he would have said comprehensive health care legislation is “critical” to sustained growth, Roberts wrote. He sought “meaningful health care reform.”