Thune Creating Game Plan To Press Forward With Spectrum Package Markup, Floor Consideration

Senior senators from multiple committees are gearing up to advance the spectrum draft legislation that Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., began circulating Friday. He told us Tuesday that he is enlisting aid from other committees, including that of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and, as expected, plans a Commerce Committee markup of the wide-ranging spectrum package before Thanksgiving (see 1511090051).

The full Senate could “probably not” approve the spectrum measure by unanimous consent, but a part of the process “comes down to working with the other committees of jurisdiction, because if you’re looking at freeing up additional spectrum, a lot of that’s going to probably be on the government band,” Thune said in an interview. “Obviously Defense, Armed Services, and so, Senator McCain, who used to chair this [Commerce] committee, I think obviously gets the importance of freeing up additional spectrum for commercial use but also understands the importance, as we do too, of making sure that DOD’s concerns are met. Ultimately these people will be involved in those conversations but I hope we can actually get something on this.”

“We’re in initial conversations, but I would like to free up some more spectrum,” McCain told us, confirming talks with Thune on advancing the spectrum package. McCain chairs the Armed Services Committee and is a former Commerce chairman. McCain smiled when asked about advancing the spectrum legislation by year’s end, expressing doubt: “A lot is going to have to be done by the end of the year.”

Thune confirmed that a Commerce Committee markup is scheduled for “probably” next week, which hasn't been announced. The agenda includes Thune’s bipartisan Consumer Review Freedom Act (S-2044) and the draft spectrum bill. “We’d like to have that on the markup agenda,” Thune said of the spectrum bill. A media industry lobbyist said Commerce expects the markup to be Nov. 18. A GOP committee aide told us Commerce staffers expect the spectrum bill, not yet introduced and subject to provision changes, to be referred to Commerce, not Armed Services.

The 45-page draft would force the government to auction off 50 MHz of spectrum by 2024 and offer federal agencies incentives to give up their own spectrum to auction, allowing them to retain up to 25 percent of auction proceeds. The legislation would set up unlicensed spectrum use involving the guard bands. The package also includes the dig once provisions and shot clocks for federal and local government authorities on siting. These ideas have appeared in various proposals throughout the last year. Wireless industry groups have backed the package, and Incompas CEO Chip Pickering lauded the draft bill Tuesday. Incompas supports the “efforts to enable private investment and lower deployment barriers to spur broadband growth and availability in both rural and urban communities,” Pickering said. "Increasing the availability of spectrum, licensed and unlicensed, along with much needed siting reforms, are an important barrier breaker that will unleash more broadband choices, innovation and investment to communities across the nation."

Democrats haven't announced support for the spectrum package and are still digesting the draft, they told us. “I’m going to a meeting with Thune right now, so let’s talk later,” Commerce Committee ranking member Bill Nelson, D-Fla., told us Tuesday. “We’re talking about everything, including net neutrality.”

The spectrum effort "is exciting,” Communications Subcommittee ranking member Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, said in an interview. "I haven’t read it.” Schatz saw no problem with advancing to a markup next week, so soon after the draft bill’s circulation: “We’ve been waiting months. I think it’s time to move along.”

“I’m still reviewing it,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. “I’m hopeful that we can reach a bipartisan result, but I’m still looking at it.”

In interviews Tuesday, Thune said his office worked with Nelson in the days leading up to the spectrum draft’s circulation. “We’ve had Senator Nelson’s staff involved and clued in with everything that we’re doing all along,” Thune said. Nelson has told us in the past of dialogue with Thune on such spectrum legislation. One Republican Senate staffer not affiliated with Thune and Nelson referred in recent weeks to the spectrum package coming together as the “Thune/Nelson” package. But a Nelson spokesman wouldn’t comment Tuesday beyond what he said Monday -- that Nelson received the draft Friday the same time as other Commerce members and that he’s reviewing it.

“We’re not there yet,” Thune said Tuesday of Democratic backing for the draft. “These are preliminary, obviously, conversations. … But I would think that on a subject like this there would be pretty broad bipartisan support. I think people on both sides recognize the value of increasing the amount of spectrum knowing, as they say, we’re going to increase the number of handheld devices five times between now and 2020.” Thune and his staffers plan to take any complaints “to heart,” he said, and they are open if people have ideas on developing “more robust” provisions on unlicensed spectrum, a priority for committee Democrats. The spectrum provisions in the two-year budget deal, enacted this month into law, are “the first step” in filling the spectrum process “but we have a lot more to do,” Thune said, citing what he sees as urgency to the package’s path forward in the Senate.

“It depends on floor schedule, obviously,” Thune told us of the spectrum bill action on the floor, beyond the committee markup. “Getting time on the calendar to move a bill like that, or perhaps it could ride on something else. And that would depend I think on how big I think the support is, the vote is coming out of committee. We would look at whatever options we have out there to move it. But it’s a pretty time-sensitive piece of legislation. We need to start filling the pipeline.”