House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Fred Upton
(D-Mich.) said on the incentive auction legislation that "our spectrum
reform is a win for taxpayers, a win for consumers, and a win for the economy
as well."
That came in a report to Republican leadership on the
committee's accomplishments in the second quarter.
And while he said his committee had pushed that legislation
"over the finish line," there was more to be done, citing the
establishment of a bipartisan working group on Federal Spectrum to determine
how the government can use spectrum more effectively.
Upton cited the March passage of FCC reform legislation (HR
3309) as another accomplishment of the committee, though unlike the spectrum
legislation, which made it through Congress to the president's desk, the
prospects for Senate passage of the FCC reforms is not good absent a change in
control in the next election.
The bill requires the commission to launch inquiries before
proposing rules; always print the text of orders before adopting them,
essentially requiring the FCC to hew to deadlines and stricter standards of
justifying and implementing regs, including market and cost-benefit analyses;
and make the regulatory standard more about preventing harms than an
"indeterminate" public interest standard.
Also on his list of accomplishments were working on
cybersecurity legislation, with "much more work ahead," and online privacy.
Upton gives Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-Calif.), chair of the Commerce,
Manufacturing and Trade Subcommittee as putting that committee on the
"front line" of assuring any federal "intervention" avoids
unintended consequences.
He also cited her leadership on H.Con.Res.127, the
bipartisan sense of Congress resolution that the U.S. should continue to back
the multistakeholder model of international internet governance. Republican and
Democrat alike are concerned about an effort by some ITU members to assert more
international control of Internet connections by applying phone regulations to
the Internet.
