DTV Bill Off To Contentious Start
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 10/26/2005 1:02:00 PM
Republicans were pushing affirmative action while Democrats were decrying higher taxes and the sort of government "takings" of private property that have conservatives in a dither of late.
No it was not Lewis Carroll's take on the Hill, but the contentious beginnings of a mark-up of the House Commerce Committee's version of the DTV transition bill, which would set a hard date of Jan. 1, 2009, and set the rules of the road for DTV carriage by broadcasters and multichannel video providers.
With only a handful of the over 30 amendments dealt with at press time (1 p.m.), the Democrats had twice been defeated, in general party-line votes, on attempts to increase the House bill's subsidy for digital-to-analog converters. The markup was expected to continue well into the afternoon before there was a vote on the base bill as amended.
The Democrats on the committee wanted to boost the subsidy from $990 million ($830 million after administrative costs) to $3.5-$4 billion so that it would cover all $60 of the cost of the box. The base bill covers $40, and would apply to all viewers. It also caps the subsidy at the first 10.3 million households to apply, with a limit of two coupons per household.
The Democrats also wanted to send the coupons to everybody, while the Republicans want a several-step process that will select only for those who take the "affirmative action" of asking for the boxes, and thus presumably really need them.
Democrats say that process will favor individuals who are comfortable giving information to the government and understand the process; in turn, they say, it could work against poor, minority and elderly populations who make up the majority of analog-only viewers.
The Democratic alternative would also put all the money into communications-related efforts, with nothing left over for the general treasury.
Also twice defeated was an attempt to set aside $5.8 billion of the proceeds from spectrum auction sales into a trust fund to pay for interoperable equipment for police and fire emergency communications. Though as a seperate amendment from the subsidy issue, it failed on a 24-24 tie vote (an amendment needs a majority, even if it is only of one).
Telecommunications Subcommittee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) said that he reluctantly opposed the bill. Republicans and Democrats alike are loathe to come down opposing emergency communications.
Upton pointed out that he had bipartisan support for an amendment he was planning to introduce that would set aside $500 million for first responder communications. That amendment later passed unanimously.
Fellow Michigander and ranking Democrat John Dingell called that woefully inadequate, but Upton assured the Democrats that "everybody would be smiling" after they conferenced with the Senate on first responder funding. The Senate DTV bill, passed last week, set aside $1 billion, and Upton suggested his $500 million would increase during that conference. but he said $5.8 billion was too much, and his colleagues agreed.
AS expected, the key issue appeared to be the size and scope for the converter box subsidy. The boxes will allow analog-only sets to still get a signal after broadcasters switch to all-digital broadcasting and return their analog spectrum for auction by the government, which is where the dollars the committee is doling out will come from.
Estimates range from $10 billion in auction revenues to as much as $28 billion.
The tax the Democrats opposed was the "TV tax" that only covering $40 of $60 and making it first-come, first served would levy on the poor, elderly and minorities. Markey also argued that rendering 70 million sets inoperable was a government taking that required full restitution.
Among the amendments that had passed at press time included 1) one that would require the FCC to study how it could reallocate some of the reclaimed broadcast spectrum going to first responders so that it could accommodate wireless broadband use; 2) one that would allow TV translators, which boost signals to rural areas, to continue to broadcast in analog beyond the hard date, and to set aside $3 million to allow those translators to convert a digital signal to analog for that purpose; and one, proposed by Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton (R-Tex.), that would direct $5 million of the $160 million in administrative costs for the subsidy into a public outreach program and would insure that satellite companies like EchoStar and DirecTV abide by the same DTV carriage rules as cable.
Democrats continued to characterize the limited subsidy as a tax on the poor to support tax cuts for the rich, while Republicans framed it as a responsible public-private partnership, and the Democrats tack as a give-away with no accountability or governor on abuses.
The bill allows cable to downconvert a broadcasters' HDTV signal to standard definition. Defeated was an amendment, introduced by Rick Boucher (D-Va.), that would have required cable systems that did that to inform viewers with a 15-second on-screen advisory unless they could convince the FCC that capacity limitations had prompted the downconversion. The vote was 31 to 16 against.
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