Congress only has one year left to get major telecommunications work finished before Capitol Hill becomes preoccupied with the 2000 presidential race. That means 1999 is crunch time for telecom lawmakers, who face a swath of complicated issues in the 106th Congress. While many are the same issues that veteran members of Congress have agonized over since the Telecommunications Act was signed in 1996, plenty of new ones exist, a fact that excites Rep. William J. "Billy" Tauzin, R-La. As returning chairman of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Trade & Consumer Protection, the 55-year-old anxiously is awaiting his legislative agenda this month. X-CHANGE Washington Bureau Chief Kim Sunderland grilled him on that agenda.
X: What are the subcommittee's goals in 1999?
Tauzin: Obviously they range the wide gamut of telecommunications issues. But one of the overriding goals will be to begin the debate on restructuring and reorganizing the FCC (Federal Communications Commission). I think that one thing we failed to do in 1996 when we rewrote the 1930s' communications law was to redo the FCC itself. I think that's work that begs doing. We're going to commence that and I consider that to be a multiyear project. We're also going to see what we can do about making the '96 [Telecom] Act work properly. I think it's jammed up in court proceedings and regulatory processes, and I think we have to administer some first aid to it real quick.
X: How will that tie in to the legislation you introduced last year called the InterLATA Communications Improvement Act of 1998 (H.R. 4801), which would have authorized the states--not the FCC--to approve the Bell companies' provisioning of long distance service?
Tauzin: In addition to H.R. 4801, there's a new piece of legislation we're going to propose as soon as we get back in session (Jan. 6), both being designed to jumpstart competition over the inter- and intraLATA (local access and transport area) lines. One of the biggest disappointments I think we've all sensed in the '96 Act is the failure to get fixed-line competition. I'm convinced at this point that the glacial pace of the FCC in this area is going to leave consumers without the advantages of competition for too long. And therefore, I'm prepared, and I think quite a few others are now prepared, to revisit some of those decisions that were made in '96. I constantly hear from people that perhaps we should have gone with a date certain [for the Bells to enter long distance] after all. So we'll be looking at several different approaches that might serve to jumpstart that competition. It just doesn't make sense, I think, to let the players out there determine the pace of that competition. That's essentially what's going on.
X: What about any legislation relating to the Internet?
Tauzin: We'll be reoffering bills that were left undone, particularly the Internet Protection Act, designed to make sure that new competitors arising out of the merger of computers and telephones and televisions over the Internet will not be hammered with the same kind of regulatory and subsidy requirements [as the rest of the telecom industry]. The other thing we're probably going to look at is subsidies. I'm thinking seriously about doing a series of hearings on universal service itself, on where those subsidies are falling and from whom and to whom. I think we'll be surprised to find out who's subsidizing whom. Something's wrong somewhere and I think it's time to look at universal service and find out why the FCC is having such a difficult time making the subsidies explicit.
X: How would you characterize the status of local competition?
Tauzin: Obviously, it's still in its early stages. I think the Bell companies are going to open up competition only as rapidly as they need to, obviously because no one wants a competitor in the marketplace if they don't have to have one. I think competition in the local loop is still an emerging thing that's going to happen at a pace that is not going to be as rapid as all of us would like, but nevertheless is going to happen.
