GOP, Dems spar over broadband 'stimulus' and FCC powers
WASHINGTON--Tempers flared as a key House committee on Thursday pored over tech-related portions of a massive and expensive so-called stimulus package, with Democrats downplaying the lack of any hearings and Republicans calling the rush to a vote the same day an "abomination."
Members of the House of Representatives committee, which is charged with finalizing the portions of the $825 billion legislation that deal with broadband, clean energy, and health care, were deeply divided along partisan lines over the procedures that should be followed. This is one of President Obama's first priorities: his spokesman said on Thursday that "we have to do everything in our power, and Congress does, too, to get that package moving."
The Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee said they weren't necessarily opposed to the proposals--instead, they said more time was necessary to review the bill and objected to the idea of approving the largest single spending package in American history with zero hearings. Another sticking point: how much authority the Federal Communications Commission would have over broadband and Net neutrality regulations.
"I respect the right of the new president to have his agenda put before the American people, but I think it is abominable that a bill that is 269 pages is going to be the object of a one-day markup and no hearing," said Joe Barton, the ranking Republican from Texas. "It is truly an insult that we couldn't have several weeks to review this."
Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) added that by not holding hearings, "We have taken away Americans' right to petition their government."
The committee approved the clean energy and broadband portions of the bill, and as of 8 p.m. ET, the rancorous session had moved on to health care and showed no signs of ending anytime soon. A vote on the remainder is expected late Thursday or Friday, with a House floor vote next week.
Democrats, led by Committee Chair Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said that without action, the economic recession would only accelerate.
"We urgently need an economic recovery package, and we need it immediately," Waxman said.
The tempestuous hearing shows that any honeymoon for the Obama administration may be unusually brief. It was only 48 hours earlier that the incoming president announced "an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics."
(To be sure, when they were in the minority instead of majority, the Democrats also complained about the same procedural gambits. The former Democratic ranking member of the same committee, John Dingell, accused (PDF) the Republicans of rushing to a vote on an energy bill "with no hearings" and "no process." Other Democrats charged in 2005 that the Republican leadership wanted to "steamroll" legislation through Congress "with no hearings.")
The debate: "Underserved" vs. "Unserved"
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act allocates $6 billion in funding for broadband deployment, with $2.825 billion in grants to be administered by the National Telecommunications Information Administration for "unserved" and "underserved" areas of the country.
Republicans were concerned however, with how "unserved" and "underserved" would be defined, how the funds would be allocated to unserved vs. underserved areas, and whether broadband funding even served the purpose of stimulating the economy.
The broadband portion of the stimulus package "will take years to implement," contended Joseph Pitts (R-Penn.). "The American people deserve better. It's not an economic stimulus, it's primarily a massive spending bill."
The legislation would leave it up to the Federal Communications Commission to define "unserved" and "underserved."
"It's a real tragedy, transferring our ability to make those policy decisions outside of this committee," said Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.). "I don't know how we make any decisions here today when we have no definitions of unserved and underserved."
To mitigate the power handed to the FCC, the committee agreed to an amendment requiring the commission to base its definitions of "underserved" and "unserved" on the information collected under the Broadband Data Collection Act.
"Hopefully we can bring some specificity to what is unserved and underserved," said Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), who introduced the amendment.
After a map of broadband access in the United States is completed, the FCC will have 90 days to define the terms and 45 more days to institute rules and regulations based on the definitions.
Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) told her colleagues there was no need to get "hung up" on the terms, provoking Steve Buyer (R-Ind.) to pound his desk.
"Definitions are important!" he said, voice raised.
Eshoo also praised the mandate for Net neutrality included in the legislation. The bill stipulates that grant recipients must operate broadband and high-speed wireless networks on an "open access basis." The FCC is charged with defining "open access" within 45 days of the bill's passage into law.
Republicans, however, said the open access requirement could impede the main purpose of the bill--job creation.
Furthermore, the bill "will require the FCC to rush to judgment on some of the most complicated issues facing the communications industry today," Stearns said.
The committee added an amendment to the bill to make broadband grant funding specifically available for interoperable networks for emergency responders. Other amendments made minor adjustments to the eligibility requirements for the funds, while others required additional reports from the FCC and the NTIA on broadband deployment and the impact of the grants.
CNET's Declan McCullagh contributed to this report.
Stephanie Condon is a staff writer for CNET News focused on the intersection of technology and politics. She is based in Washington, D.C. E-mail Stephanie. 
As much as I agree with the general policies of the Democrats and trust Waxman more than most any other Democrat, we have no way of perfecting the flaws of this bill if it isn't aired out in public.
And it's not like we're one day away from disaster. If we hit economic disaster, it's because no one acted in 2007, and when Congress and the President acted in early 2008, their actions were so pathetically weak, that even with the stimulus bill, we were still in a recession for all of 2008.
So do the right thing and hold at least one hearing to go over contentious portions of the bill, and see if we can't get a compromise to get a bipartisan vote.
We're in position now to clean up the mess left by the previous misadministration, we need to take a deep breath and do it right instead of trying to rush in and fix it quick. It will be a slow process and yes, some retardicans will blame Obama for the mess we're continuing to suffer - but in the end it will be Obama's Administration that will fix this mess and be credited for it. But first we have to do it right!
In recent years the FCC has made many mistakes, and they should be held to account, but we hire them to do a job and should expect them to do it properly.
In recent years the FCC has made many mistakes, and they should be held to account, but we hire them to do a job and should expect them to do it properly.
Within the past year, our elitists in Congress have just created around 20% of our official national debt worth of money ($2,500,000,000,000). Who's going to pay for this? There will be no new goods or services created from this, so demand and supply with stay the same only with more money around. That is what leads to inflation. The democrats, along with most republicans, are going to ruin our country because they fail to follow the Constitution and history.
I'd like to know where in our Constitution our government has the authority to provide Internet access to areas where the free market has determined it's not worth the money. 10th amendment? Screw it!
Open access will create jobs, instead of monopolies, if this resource is made free to access and use, then you won't have to pay to line the pockets of some giant telco exec's pockets, you can spend that money on other, real goods and services, which will also help the economy. Maybe start your own internet business without having such a huge internet bill.
Free market forces only engage where there is direct profit to be made, and does not always provide the greatest benefit. To even mention free market in the area of communications is a joke, since there really only a few, huge corperations who own and maintain the comunnications networks, and rarely compete in the same area. Think what it would be like if our highways were owned and managed like this. Say GM owned a particular highway, and you were only allowed to drive a GM car on it, and had to pay GM for every mile driven, on top of the operating and vehicle costs.
I am all for free enterprise when it is truly free (meaning unrestricted), but at the same time gross, gouging profits are to the economy, what huge heat and energy draining circuits are in a device, gross inefficiency and waste. Electrons in a circuit = Money in an economy.
Blanket spending bills will be a waste of time and money if not spent on the right things, but anything that will eliminate the gross gouging that occurs in the health care, energy, and communications industry should be put through with due haste. These are all basic things, that we all need, and should, dare I say, be socialized to some degree, not captialized upon. The same could be said for the Insurance industry. When something is shared/needed by all the people, and the country itself, it is social, whether you like the word or not, and does not have to displace free enterprise, or captialism.
The FCC is really one of the great places to start in fixing this country. By eliminating the incredible drain these monopolistic telco corperations have on our economy, all businesses and individuals will benefit from reduced operating costs. A universal, ubiquitous, wireless broadband network, without service or access charges would cost much less to build and maintain than wired networks, and create many more jobs, than owned, licensed networks. If only Verizon owns the networks, then only jobs are created for Verizon. Conversly, using the highway example, look how many road construction jobs, and companies are out there, truly competeing, for government contracts to build and maintain roads. Not to mention all the jobs that can be created utilizing such a valueable, and essential resource as communications. Our highway system is 'socialized', funded for by the tax payers, yet it creates countless jobs, without monopolies.
The FCC has made some huge blunders, but also they have made some smart decisions, like opening the white spaces. I sincerely hope they will continue making some of these better desicions, adopt sensible definitions, and establish open useful standards for its future developement.
Do this, AND recognize that free trade agreements, and offshore tax shelters, are bleeding the country dry of jobs and money, and Obama will be on the right track to turning this economy around. We need jobs, plain and simple, investing in the country's infrastructure, eliminating waste and inefficiencies, will go a long way towards creating those jobs and growing the economy.
Throwing money at every greedy corperation and financial institution that whines because they mismanaged themselves, that lobbied the gov for policies that ruin our consumer and manufacturing base, by shipping jobs overseas, is certainly not going to work.. They need boot to the head.
I think its time to stop giving these greedy corporations more money and its time to start penalizing them for every day they don't make progress on getting this country up to snuff with Europe and Japan. And make the penalties come out of THEIR pockets, not the consumers.
- by as901 January 24, 2009 5:17 AM PST
- When the GOP say "undeserved", they mean little children, seniors and disabled veterans. When they speak of those that "deserve government aid", they mean billionaires who made billions more off the Iraq war and pro Republican, pro outsourcing, pro deregulation rich!
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(16 Comments)You know, the same folks whpo destroyed out economy!
Mark Heinemann
US Veteran