DTV Delay Act
Floor Speech
DTV DELAY ACT -- (House of Representatives - February 04, 2009)
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Mr. WALDEN. I thank the gentleman from Texas.
I want to talk to this measure. I think part of the frustration those of us on the Republican side of the aisle feel is this: We are being asked to truncate the time to debate this bill, which was already limited to no amendments under a closed rule, a bill that has never had a hearing in this House or before the Energy and Commerce Committee or the subcommittee.
The Republicans were completely denied the opportunity to offer any amendment at any time. Now I am trying to figure out how that's democracy in action and how that is change for a better day. And now we are being asked to basically cut it quick, be quiet, go back to our offices so they can go to the White House for a media show.
Let me talk to this bill. Delaying the DTV date from February 17 to June puts it right in the middle of hurricane season, tornado season, and all that. It doesn't open up the spectrum any sooner for law enforcement to deal with the issues that the public safety community identified 5 years to the day of 9/11. Five years before, they said, You have got to give us some more spectrum so we can have interoperability. That is back in 2001. We are that to here. Now we are going to delay it some more.
For broadcasters in my State of Oregon, they are going to get to pay $500,000 to $1 million more in energy costs to run two transmitters, when they should only, and had counted on, only running one. So to keep their analog--most likely, a tube-driven transmitter fired up--that will add 4 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere at a time when I thought the majority and others in this Congress wanted to do something about carbon emissions.
So, it will cost $1 million, it will cost jobs. You will burn more energy. They will have to have engineers keep old transmitters hobbled together. We had a transmitter across the river in Washington State, an analog transmitter, burn up 2 weeks ago. Their analog transmitter. It's off the air. They switched. And they haven't had any real pushback from the community.
``The provisions in this new bill, according to Communications Daily,'' that purport to provide a safety valve for public safety agencies that want to make use of the 700 megahertz spectrum before the revised deadline are worse than provisions that raised public safety objections,'' industry officials said Friday. ``This bill is totally of no value to public safety,'' said an industry official.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to put this report from Communications Daily into the Record so that Americans and our colleagues can see this.
Under the bill, a public safety agency can go on the air if a TV station vacates its channel in compliance with the various rules. And yet, it's so complicated in here, that isn't going to happen. We had Members say, Gee, we have got to do something to help public safety. This just delays that.
So you're going to burn more power, you're going to cost jobs. Then, most Americans, 93, 94, probably pushing up higher than that, have already made the conversion, that we know of. A million people have come off the waiting list for the coupons in the last 4 weeks.
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Mr. WALDEN. A simple change in the law to allow budget authority of $250 million to NTIA would allow them to flow these coupons out. The stimulus bill spends $600 million more on the coupon conversion program, and yet that money isn't going to be out the door until April at the soonest.
So I am trying to figure out how if you move this to the middle of June, and you don't get the money out the door until April or May. I am not sure you have solved the coupon problem.
In closing, the Fraternal Order of Police, who represent a couple hundred thousand law enforcement officers, are opposed to moving this date. And so am I, Mr. Chairman. I think it's unnecessary and it's expensive.
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Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, let's get this down.
On November 6, NTIA notified us that they may have a problem with money. At the end of December, they said they have got to start a waiting list. And today is February 4. So you had December, January, and now February, 3 months to work this out, and there was a simple accounting fix that could have been done early on that would have solved this problem. So at a minimum we could have addressed this earlier had the majority wanted to. Right now, our biggest concern, frankly, should be with law enforcement and our emergency services.
Five years to the day before America was attacked on September 11, 2001, the law enforcement community said: We need you to free up this spectrum, make this transition, and get it done; because if we have an attack or a problem in this country, we don't have the interoperable capability to communicate. And, unfortunately, we will learn the sad, tragic, and deadly reality of that failure to communicate as rescue workers tried to do their jobs in New York City.
So all this motion to commit says is that let's have the FCC make sure that we are not going to further hamper our emergency services personnel and their ability to have interoperable communications, so that fire and police can talk to each other when there is an emergency. That is all this says: FCC, make sure this gets done right; and, if there is a problem, move these stations so that we put the safety of our firefighters, the safety of our police first and the safety of our communities. Because, Lord knows, we may be the subject of another attack.
We all hope that does not occur. But if it does, there will be another commission that says: How come you guys waited? Why didn't you do what we told you to do when we had the last commission, the 9/11 Commission? Why didn't you listen to the public service folks 5 years before the attack on 9/11? Why didn't you step up and do your job?
There is a simple accounting fix that initially there was reportedly even bipartisan for, until the transition team said, oh, no, let's just move the date. Then everything crumbled, and that is where we are today.
Last night my wife and I were watching TV, and here comes the ad on Comcast that says that: Congress has passed a law that says February 17, 2009, the analogue signal goes away, and you just subscribe to us or you do this converter box.
We are still having these folks advertise as of last night what the law is today. People, are confused. You think confusion? They are still being told, here is what you are supposed to do. And this is why people don't trust the government, because you get everybody marching, doing what they are supposed to do, the broadcasters, the industries that supply the boxes, everything else, and then we move the goalposts. And I don't think that makes sense. In this case, it doesn't have to happen. We can work through this process. You could make a simple accounting change; you would be $250 million just authorized and you get the coupons out the door.
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