Congressional Forecast: Telecom Policy Storm Brewing
June 7, 2010
| 11:03 AM
Brace for the telecommunications storm. Four influential Democrats announced plans late last month to reopen the 1934 Communications Act for the first time in 14 years, immediately igniting a frenzy in Washington. The last time Congress ventured down this path, in 2006, an open battle ensued over a massive bill that swelled with pet provisions; the struggle finally ended amid rancor and finger-pointing. Along the way, telecom firms contributed more than $6 million to lawmakers and spent nearly $110 million on lobbying during the 2006 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Telecom experts say the stage is being set for a legislative encore that could stretch well beyond 2011 and is poised to bring back the political daggers and big-money lobbying. "This basically will pick up where Congress left off in 2006," a veteran lobbyist said.
Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., chairman of the Energy and Commerce panel's Communications, Technology, and the Internet Subcommittee, recently told National Journal that the law needs to be "modernized," because it hasn't kept pace with advancements since its last update in 1996. "It's a major undertaking and worthy, I think, of a bipartisan and bicameral focus, at least early on," he said.
Not long ago, companies such as AT&T and Verizon would have recoiled at the notion of Congress intervening in a substantive way on policy matters. Now they're applauding it. With the Federal Communications Commission pursuing proposals that many carriers reject as "interventionist," shifting the focus to Congress is viewed as "not a bad bet," explained Rob Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank.
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