Acting NTIA Dir. Michael Gallagher told the Senate Commerce Commi...

Acting NTIA Dir. Michael Gallagher told the Senate Commerce Committee Tues. that in negotiating a swath of spectrum from the Defense Dept. to be used for Wi-Fi, he learned the importance of engineers in devising policy. “I learned to trust the engineers over the lawyers,” he said during his confirmation hearing. Gallagher said strong leadership from the top also helped ensure that the Wi-Fi spectrum would remain open. Earlier this year, NTIA, the FCC and commercial wireless interests negotiated an arrangement to free spectrum in the 5 GHz band for Wi-Fi. He said such policy decisions helped “put the U.S. at the leading edge of technology.” The Commerce Committee didn’t vote on the nomination and will schedule a vote on several nominations later, a committee spokeswoman said. But Gallagher appeared to be well received by the 4 senators who showed up for the hearing. However, Sen. Allen (R-Va.), while supportive of Gallagher, asked him about Commerce Dept. objections to a bill (S-196) he introduced that would provide $250 million to black and minority colleges for telecom infrastructure. The measure has passed the Senate, but a companion bill by Rep. Forbes (R-Va.) (HR-2801) is stalled after procedural objections from the Commerce Dept. Gallagher said he was aware of the impasse and would pass Allen’s concern on to the Commerce Secy. He also told reporters after the hearing that the Commerce Dept. would wait until next year before again prodding Congress for legislation that would bring the NTIA under the Technology Administration (TA). That proposal has little support on Capitol Hill and Senate Commerce Committee Chmn. McCain (R-Ariz.) said he didn’t see that proposal being introduced this year. CTIA said it supported Gallagher’s nomination.