The House Judiciary Committee yesterday got busy in telecommunications, marking up H.R. 1542, the so-called Tauzin-Dingell bill, and H.R. 1698 and 2120, the Cannon-Conyers competing bills.
Competitive local providers hailed victory at Judiciary Committee’s rejection of the "Internet Freedom and Broadband Deployment Act of 2001" (H.R. 1542).
The vote came largely because of the effect that the bill would have on the CLEC industry, CLEC lobbyists said, arguing that Judiciary's action will help slow down the progress of H.R. 1542 in the full House.
But the action also creates a pending showdown between Judiciary and the House Commerce Committee, which favorably marked up H.R. 1542 last month. The House Rules Committee now will have to determine whether the actions of the two committees can be reconciled before the bill goes to the House floor for a vote. Such a vote hasn’t yet been scheduled.
Judiciary’s action yesterday amounted to adoption of an amendment to H.R. 1542 by Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-Wis.), and then a vote that unfavorably reported the bill out of committee. Judiciary also rejected H.R. 2120 by a 19-15 vote and took no action on H.R. 1698, moves that led the BOCs to also claim victory yesterday.
The Tauzin-Dingell bill is sponsored by Rep. W.J. “Billy” Tauzin (R-La.) and Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), the chairman and ranking Democrat on the House Commerce Committee, respectively.
The Commerce Committee held what many considered to be bitter markup sessions last month on the bill, with supporters arguing that the bill would promote the deployment of broadband services by giving the BOCs certain regulatory relief.
Specifically, the bill would, among other things, give the BOCs regulatory relief for interLATA data services, but not for voice services. Proponents of H.R. 1542 argued at the markup that broadband cable services aren’t regulated, so DSL service also shouldn’t be regulated.
The Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over antitrust matters, was given “a sequential referral” that granted it limited time and jurisdiction over H.R. 1542. The committee wasn’t permitted to rewrite the bill, but did have authority over the Attorney General's consultative authority under Section 271 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
Under this limited authority, Congressman Sensenbrenner, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, proposed an amendment with two provisions. First, while H.R. 1542 removes certain regulation of the BOCs by the FCC (www.fcc.gov), the Sensenbrenner amendment then would replace it with antitrust regulation of the BOCs by the U.S. Department of Justice (www.usdoj.gov).
The Sensenbrenner amendment also would reverse the opinion of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Goldwasser v. Ameritech, in which the court addressed the application of antitrust law to the BOCs.
The BOCs naturally argued against the amendment, claiming that it was beyond Judiciary’s jurisdiction. But Sensenbrenner ruled that his amendment stood and the committee subsequently adopted it by a voice vote.
Judiciary also then adopted a motion made by Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah) to report the bill as amended unfavorably. Cannon is one of the leaders opposing H.R. 1542.
The CLEC industry, which has steadfastly opposed H.R. 1542, called Judiciary’s action a double victory. Chief minority Counsel Julian Epstein, for instance, said that H.R. 1542 was defeated when Judiciary adopted the Sensenbrenner amendment and then reported the bill unfavorably.
The Association for Local Telecommunications Services (ALTS) (www.alts.org), which lobbies on behalf of the CLEC industry, said Judiciary delivered a “damaging body blow” to the bill.
“The Judiciary Committee has exercised its traditional, thoughtful approach to the issues of competition for local telecom services,” John D. Windhausen Jr., president of ALTS, said in a statement. “The [committee] recognized that H.R. 1542 would put the nation on a perilous course of strengthening monopolies and undercutting competition.”
H. Russell Frisby Jr., president of the Competitive Telecommunications Association (CompTel) (www.comptel.org), also a lobbyist for competitors, likewise hailed the vote as a victory for the competitive industry.
“We set out with two simple goals and we have achieved all of them,” Frisby said in a statement yesterday. “H.R. 1542 has been negatively referred and strong antitrust enforcement has once again reclaimed its rightful place in telecommunications.”
But H.R. 1542 proponents, such as Ben Cline, chief of staff for Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), held up victory for the BOCs’ side. By amending H.R. 1542, they said that Judiciary actually was saying that the Commerce Committee version of H.R. 1542 was the better more appropriate bill.
Gary Lytle, interim president and CEO of the U.S. Telecom Association (USTA, www.usta.org), which lobbies on behalf of the BOCs, said in a statement that Judiciary rejected a version of H.R. 1542 “that would have added additional burdensome, unfair regulations to the provision of high-speed Internet access by telephone companies, and we expect this version of the bill is likely dead.”
If the Tauzin-Dingell bill moves forward, it next would go to the House Rules Committee and then to the House floor.
Whether House Republicans can bring this bill to the floor is uncertain and numerous sources say they are sure that the bill wouldn’t be approved in the Senate even if it made it out of the House.
The House Judiciary Committee also narrowly rejected H.R. 2120, the “Broadband Antitrust Restoration and Reform Act”, which was introduced by Reps. Cannon, John Conyers (D-Mich.), Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), and Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.).
The so-called Cannon-Conyers bill would have required the DOJ to approve any BOC application to provide interLATA data services and to require the DOJ to restore any regulation that could be shown to impede local competition.
This bill also appears dead in the House.
