Deborah D. McAdams / 08.17.2011 12:00AM
Dingell and NAB Flame FCC Chairman for Withholding Spectrum Analysis Model
WASHINGTON: Congressman
John Dingell unfriended Julius Genachowski this week over the FCC chairman’s
refusal to pony up the commission’s spectrum-analysis plan for auctioning off
broadcast airwaves. The Michigan Democrat asked Genachowski in June to share
the commission’s Allotment Optimization Model to get an idea how many
households would lose over-the-air TV reception when a chunk of broadcast
channels are redesignated for broadband.
Genachowski needs Congressional authority to hold incentive auctions whereby
broadcasters who relinquish spectrum receive a piece of the proceeds. Dingell
asked for a response by June 27. He got one Aug. 3. Genachowski basically told
the Congressman to go fish.
“As you know,” Genachowski wrote, “the AOM is a tool that commission staff is
developing to assist the Commission in conducting voluntary incentive auctions,
should Congress grant us the requisite authority. At this point, the AOM
remains very much a work in progress, and I am deeply concerned that disclosure
of pre-decisional information would potentially damage the commission's
deliberative processes, as well as result in needless public confusion about
the status of the commission's work on the voluntary incentive auction concept.”
And so Dingell said, “Your refusal to respond substantively to my questions is
deeply troubling from a number of perspectives… your failure to provide me with
a detailed response to my inquiry leaves me no choice but to rely upon analyses
performed by private parties as Congress considers whether to grant your agency
the authority you seek.”
An analysis from the National Association of Broadcasters led by former FCC
veteran Bruce Franca said 210 stations would be knocked off the air. (
See “NAB: Broadband Plan Would Take
210 Full-Power TV Stations Off the Air.”) An FCC spokesman said the NAB
was engaging in “scare tactics.”
“Providing a substantive response to my June 17
th letter would have
given the commission an excellent opportunity to prove the NAB was incorrect,”
Dingell wrote. “Your refusal to do so leaves me no alternative but to conclude
that the NAB’s analysis is probably more correct than not.”
The Congressman was especially peeved about Genachowski’s “insistence” on being
granted incentive-auction authority without handing over the AOM.
“You force me to conclude that you in fact are concealing from congress the
true nature and consequences of future agency actions,” Dingell said. “With
this in mind, I will oppose granting the commission any statutory authority to
conduct such auctions that does not include explicit and fair protection for
broadcasters.”
To which the NAB chief and former U.S. Senator Gordon Smith replied, “what he
said.”
“It is deeply disappointing that a member of Congress as distinguished and
long-serving as John Dingell would not receive an answer from the FCC to a
question so vital to his constituency,” Smith wrote in support of the
Congressman. “If the FCC has evidence proving that NAB’s analysis is incorrect,
it should make it available, and quickly.”
Dingell further mused that the FCC under Genachowski seemed to be establishing
a pattern with regard to information.
“I have read with great interest that several of my colleagues have had
difficulty securing responses to their inquiries from the commission, something
which I also experienced nearly a year ago with a letter I sent you concerning
the reclassification of broadband Internet access services,” he wrote. “One
wonders if perhaps members of Congress would have an easier time getting
information from the commission by filing Freedom of Information Act requests.”
~ Deborah D. McAdams