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National League of Cities: City Officials Concerned Ensign BillWould Gut Communications Act

Posted on: Friday, 29 July 2005, 12:00 CDT

WASHINGTON, July 29 /U.S. Newswire/ -- City officials announced their strong opposition today to a bill just introduced by Senator John Ensign (R-Nev.) to rewrite the Communications Act, which appears to gut the role that local and state government plays in protecting the rights of citizens.

"This bill takes away most controls and protections that local governments need to monitor and ensure that the communications industry is responsible and responsive to our citizens," said Arvada, Colo., Mayor Ken Fellman, and lead spokesman for the National League of Cities (NLC) on telecommunications issues. "This bill eliminates local cable franchising altogether. It cripples our ability as local governments to manage our public rights-of-way and it blocks our efforts to ensure that communications services are available to anyone, not just the chosen few."

Among the many concerns about the Broadband Investment and Consumer Choice Act (S.1504) noted by NLC officials are:

Franchise Issues

-- The bill would immediately eliminate all existing local franchise agreements. The new provisions would be applicable to all video service providers, both existing cable companies and new entrants.

-- Although the bill retains the current five percent gross revenue cap on franchise fees to address local government concerns, it limits the revenues from these fees in two ways: 1) by limiting these fees to the cost of managing the rights-of-way; and 2) providing four-and-a-half pages of exceptions to what can be included in the gross revenue costs, gutting existing contractual agreements.

-- The bill allows video providers to ask the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reduce their franchise fees and makes the FCC the arbitrator of disputes over franchise fees, forcing local governments nationwide to incur the costs to come to Washington to resolve disputes.

Permitting and Rates

-- The Ensign bill prohibits municipalities from charging fees for issuing construction permits needed to install or upgrade facilities.

-- The bill eliminates all rate regulation of any kind of any telephone or video service. Companies will now be able to undercut prices of a competitive provider in one part of a city, while charging higher prices for the same services in communities that might not be as attractive to competitive providers.

Public Channels and Consumer Protection

-- Under the bill, video providers would be required to offer only four public, educational and government (PEG) public access channels.

-- All consumer protection rules would be adopted at the federal level and state commissions would be responsible to enforce these provisions.

-- The sole regulatory role of local governments for video communications would be to select which four channels would be used as PEG channels.

-- It weakens provisions for customer service standards on data and telephone services.

Ability of local governments to offer communications services to their communities, i.e., broadband services offered by municipalities

-- Cities would be required to develop a detailed description of any project, including cost, services to be provided, coverage area, terms and architecture. The city must then employ a neutral third- party to conduct an open bidding process. In the event a public entity is chosen, any private entity receives the right to use government facilities such as in-ground conduits or trenches.

-- Existing government projects to provide these types of services would be grandfathered, but not if they are "substantially expanded."

NLC President Anthony A. Williams and mayor of Washington, D.C., acknowledged the need to modernize regulation of the telecom industry to reflect the knowledge-based economy and environment of the 21st century. "But we must have balance when we look at telecommunications issues," Williams said today. "We support new technologies and new ways to deliver information, voice and video services, and we welcome head-to-head video competition in our cities and towns throughout the country, but this bill won't help us achieve that goal."

Mayor Fellman, who chairs NLC's Information Technology and Communications Committee, said, "We have grave concerns about the language in Senator Ensign's bill. We will spend the recess educating members about the crippling impact this would have on our ability as local governments to manage our public rights of way, and to serve our citizens. Not only is the bill bad public policy, but it revokes existing contracts, creates special exemptions for telecommunications companies, and, in a number of respects, appears to be unconstitutional."

NLC will be working with state leagues and local elected officials to educate Congress about the strong opposition of local governments to this bill. The chairs of both the Senate and House Commerce Committees, Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) are expected to introduce their own rewrite bills later this year.

http://www.usnewswire.com

Source: U.S. Newswire

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