More Changes In Store For Satellite Bill
The House Energy and Commerce Committee is slated to mark up legislation Thursday that would reauthorize sections of the Satellite Home Viewer Reauthorization Act set to expire Dec. 31. A key Energy and Commerce subcommittee approved a narrowly tailored version of the bill in June. The House Judiciary Committee, which shares jurisdiction, overwhelmingly approved its version of the bill in September.
House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman's amendment in the nature of a substitute would make several changes. The proposal would:
• Insert new grandfathering language to ensure that consumers who are lawfully receiving distant network programming do not lose access to that programming due to Judiciary Committee changes.
• Insert a new section to account for the Judiciary Committee's decision to establish a process by which a federal court could lift an injunction that prevents one satellite carrier, Dish Network, from using the distant compulsory copyright license once it provides local into local service in every U.S. market.
• Insert a new section to ensure that nothing in this legislation, the Communications Act, or any FCC regulation stands in the way of private negotiations over the retransmission of programming.
• Require the Commission to issue a report to Congress concerning the ability of consumers to access in-state programming and the use of the designated market area system to define local markets for the purposes of receiving in-state programming.
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