Va. Pole-Attachments Bill Advances in House

The Virginia House Commerce Committee cleared a pole-attachments bill (HB-800) in a 22-0 vote Thursday. Under a committee substitute, the bill would regulate how public utilities handle attachment requests. A pole owner would have to determine within 15 business days if an application is complete. If the owner decides it’s incomplete, the attacher could resubmit the application and receive a response within seven business days. Within 75 days of receiving a complete request, the utility would have to decide whether to grant or deny the application and survey affected poles. HB-800 would bar a public utility from making a telecom or cable provider pay the cost of replacing a red-tagged pole, meaning a pole that is “designated for replacement for any reason unrelated to a lack of capacity to accommodate a new attacher's request for attachment or … would have needed to be replaced at the time of replacement even if the new attachment was not made.” Telecom and cable providers would have to pay “the incremental cost of a taller or stronger pole that is necessitated solely by the new” telecom or cable facilities. Also, HB-800 would require the Virginia State Corporation Commission to resolve pole-access disputes, including allocation of rearrangement costs, within 90 days, and to resolve other pole attachment issues within 120 days.