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"congressional chronicle." it's washington your way. >> this week on "the communicators," a look at potential telecommunications and technology policy in the 112th congress. our guests are former hill staffers. >> well, with the new congress in place and new leadership in power, we thought we'd take this opportunity on "the communicators" to look at telecommunications policy and the 112th congress. joining us are two former congressional staff members, trisha pauletta was a majority counsel in the house of representatives for the republicans in the 1990's, and katherine mccullough was the former senate commerce counsel on the democratic side. thank you for being with us. we appreciate it. joining us also is julianna grunwald, dale low dose he hadtor of the national journal.

katherine, if i can start with you. you wrote in a recent blog in comlaw.com, that you look for two things -- a high degree of activity on telecommunications policy in the upcoming congress, and a high degree of cooperation. why did you write that? >> i think that there's going to be a high degree of cooperation on certain issues. for instance, tv spectrum allocation, when it comes to the idea of deciding on authority for incentive auctions and who's going to get what slice of the pie. there's a lot of incentive to work together on those issues, because it's going to mean extra money for the treasury, which, of course, means that that money can be used to either lower the deficit or be put to other programs. >> do you, trisha, see cooperation in the upcoming congress on telecommunications policy, and do you see them acting on a lot of different issues? >> first of all, minority party always calls for cooperation.

but there is a lot of common ground on spectrum policy and the need to rationalize the rules on spectrum options. the priority coming out of the box, at least on the house republican side, is to do close scrutiny of the net neutrality decision that just came out from the f.c.c. and there is a review being called for that with hearings with the full commission and also potential joint rest luges of disapproval, which will be a little more challenging than that of the senate, to look at that more closely. and because that was a very party-line vote out of the f.c.c. very recently, there's a bit of a partisan feeling in this congress. so we'll get to cooperation down the road, but first there will be a close review of the decision. >> catherine, your views on chairman walden and the net neutrality issue. >> well, i think that he stated

his views very clearly. he issued the release with chairman upton and also with lee terry, and i think that my colleague here is right. i think if there's going to be a lot of review of that early on, and i think a lot of the action -- once the initial party goes on in congress, the vibe there is pretty well defined. so i think the next thing we're going to see, of course, is the next bit of action happening in the courts. and i think it's very interesting that even though everyone seems to be divided on this issue and very far apart on what should occur and what neutrality should look like, you know, everyone is in agreement that a delay in determining the playing field hurts everyone. and yet, i think that's what court action is going to mean. >> both of our guests are telecommunications lawyers and still involved in telecommunications policies following their stints on

capitol hill. julianna grunwald with "tech daily dose." >> do you see policy issues playing a prominent role in the house g.o.p. agenda? >> well, absolutely, because it's why we agreed and the house and the senate, of course, republican and democrats, that technology is the growth engine for our economy and our international competitiveness. so i do think it will play quite a big role. and clearly the house g.o.p. has announced that its priority is health care repeal. so that's going to take a lot of energy. and then, of course, after that is energy. but telecommunications is important, and because, as democratty mentioned, there is -- karate mentioned, there is a lot of broad agreement on what needs to be done. once you clear through those other issues, you are going to see that focus. assuming chairman upton has a lot of experience, he chaired

that committee early on. so he understands telecom. he's one of the few licensed ham operators, amateur radio operators, which is, you know, is kind of a specialized niche, so he understands spectrum and understands the importance of it. so i think it will be a big issue in this congress. >> now, he hasn't really -- mr. walden hasn't outlined his agendas. in addition to net neutrality, what other priorities do you see for him? >> well, universal service reform. he comes from a rural state. that's a very important issue for rural residents, to get all services and to the extent therlhi areas, you do need subsidies. so that's going to be an issue.

he's bringing on as one of his staffers someone who chaired the state regulatory group on universal service. and clearly the vice chairman of the subcommittee, lee terry, has a long-standing interest in universal reform, as has chairman rockefeller. >> speaking of chairman rockefeller, will he push u.s.f. reform in this congress, and do you see it happening? >> i don't know if i see it happening. chairman rockefeller is very interesting, in that he is very consumer oriented in the avenues that he pursues. so on the one hand the argument could be made that if u.s.f. is reformed, those will go down and that's a consumer angle that can be pursued. it will be interesting to see how that plays out. i actually think that one of the key players in u.s.f. would probably be someone like senator deminute, who is on the

-- demint, who is on the committee and has a very sharp staff, who know how to get their way around telecom issues. but also, he's a fiscal conservative and he is against, in principle, kind of waste. and i think that you can maybe look to him for some leadership on how this issue is going to play out. >> is u.s.f. -- why is it such a money issue? >> well, depending on how you look at it, you have kind of, shall we say, entrenched interests in the states that receive money for the services they perform. and so if you're a senator and obviously if you're interested in your state interests, and then you also have the national interest to consider about this national program and how to broaden it to take in new technologies, you're in kind of a -- you know, you have kind of a choice there.

so it's going to be interesting. >> and it's a money issue, because in a competitive industry it's quite a burden on actually contributing into the funds. the f.c.c. sets the contribution factor. interesting word. but it's a mandatory payment, a percentage of their interstate revenues, and of late it's gone to historically high levels. 15%, over 15% of interstate revenues are supposed to be paid into this fund that -- working under the f.c.c.'s governance pays out to eligible carriers to help expand service. but 15% is quite a high number and not all carriers are subject to it because of f.c.c. regulations on internet. so you're also seeing less and less people really participate and then more of the traffic is going and moving on to internet platforms. so it's becoming more and more of an issue, more acute. so there's a lot of mope involved and there's a lot of -- money involved and there's a lot of competitive distortions involved. this may be the era that it

gets done. >> lee terry, you mentioned him. he was in the former congress with congressman boucher to reform u.s.f. he recently told me that he was looking for a democratic partner to work with him in the 112th congress. do you see any likely democrats that would work with him on that? and if not, do you see the f.c.c. acting, and do they have the authority to do what needs to be done on their own? >> i understand the democrats are still organizing their subcommittees, leaderships. i don't know who's going to take those roles on. but there's plenty of democrat members who might be interested, because it's an important issue, and particularly as the fund may move to cover broadband. so there's a number of members who might step up to do that. so it is an issue. >> the f.c.c., could they -- >> yes, they have stated that they have authority to reform the fund. and as lee mentioned, it was fairly broud to give them power

to amend it. >> do you see them acting -- i'm sorry. >> no, go ahead. >> yes, i do see them acting. in fact, they're going to act on one piece of it in february. it's already on their agendas. >> catherine mccullough, we'll start with you. where does congressional legislative power ends and f.c.c. authority start? >> i think everybody wishes they knew the answer to that question. [laughter] and i think that the courts are going to be the ultimate arbiters, of course, they usually are. finds it very interesting culturally that both congress and the administration tend to ignore the courts a little bit until they're pretty far down the road and the courts come down with the hammer. so, you know, for instance, that's a very important question when it comes to net neutrality. as i said, we're going to be going to the courts over that issue. i think it will be interesting to see how it comes out. i'm not so sure that courts are going to give the f.c.c. what they want. >> picking up on that, before i

went to congress, i actually worked at the federal communications commission. so i took to heart the communication act that basically says the f.c.c. can do whatever it wants in order to regulate interstate communications. and then i went up to congress and it's a different story. the congress committees are actually unusual committees in that their role, as spelled out in the constitution, which is not very typical -- i don't know if there's other committees, maybe one or two. that the ability to regulate interstate commerce is spelled out in the constitution and given to the committees. and that authority is delegated to the f.c.c. so there is always that yin and yang as to how much discussion the f.c.c. has to fill in the blanks of what's not actually in the communications act, and that is the debate that catherine has alluded to. and i wanted to pick up on another point you made earlier. in terms of mr. walden's priorities, i do think he'll be looking at the broadband stimulus funds that have been

allocated two years ago. at the beginning of the last congress there was a lot of money, about $7 billion allocated to commerce and to agriculture to help stimulate broadband. a lot of that money has gone out the door, and i think this congress, presumably on the senate side as well, p be looking at how that meant was spent. >> speaking of darrell eye sip, his name is starting to pop up quite a bit when it comes to telecommunications policy. do you see him playing a role in moving some of these issues forward or stopping some of knees issues? >> like greg walden, he has the technical backgrounds. i think he's one of the few members of congress that helped pass it. so i think he is interested, and, of course, he representatives a district in california where silicon valley and entrepreneurs have a lot of political influence. so, yes, i think he will be, just from his districts' concerns and his own backgrounds. he will be interested in that.

>> i talked a bit about the subcommittee staff this morning, and it turns out that he is going to be going for seven hearings a week. that's a lot of energy. so i think that he is very serious in his determine nation to review programs and to look at where government's role is and should be. >> there were letters saying tell us what regulatory programs are undermining job growth, undermineding innovation. so he's already stepped into that space. >> this is c-span's communicators program, we're discussing the telecommunications policy. our guest, trisha paoletta on the house side from 2003 to 2006, and catherine mccullough, former senate commerce committee counsel on the democratic side in the 1990's.

juliana grunwald is the editor of "tech daily dose." >> a former congressman said yesterday that his firm would like to see congress revisit the 1996 telecom act. do you see that happening? could some of these net neutrality, f.c.c. issues be clarified, with a rewrite of the telecom act? >> last year there was a lot of talk about rewriting the act. i don't think that's going to happen too early on in this congress, because you have a lot of new members who don't have the decades of experience that some of the departing members had. so i think you might, toward the second half of the year, get to hearings educating those members. but i don't see that happening early on balls of the other priorities, including net neutrality they'll want to get through. >> i agree. i think that because of the factors that were just mentioned here and also because you have this situation where

nobody is fully in the majority, i think that the first focus is going to be on oversight hearings and investigating specific matters. when things calm down, then you might be able to see a chance of having kind of contemplative discussions and kind of gatherings of people who want to look at different sections of the act. and there was talk about that happening last congress. and when these committees are going to get all this time to go and kind of rationally pick apart the telecom act, i don't know exactly when that's going to be. but i don't think that it would be in the early part of this next congress. >> where do you see the house and the senate working together? you mentioned spectrum, but are there other areas that you see senate democrats and house republicans working together on? >> you go ahead. >> i do. i think, for instance, there's going to be some kind of baseline privacy legislation

worked out. the issue of privacy -- the technologies have kind of come to fruition, and these definitions of what should be regulated, people are coming to kind of a consensus about that. and then in the marketplace it seems as though there might be a necessity for. i for instance, we hear about facebook possibly going public, that has tremendous implications for all of our private information. and it's difficult to see how a company like facebook can make promises to its investors when it doesn't quite know how all the information that it has can be used. and so it will probably be useful for that field to become clear so that investment can go forward. >> do you see congress blessing the idea of a do not track mechanism that the f.c.c. has

called for in their draft privacy report release in december? >> possibly. i think after hearings, though. the committees very quickly -- the do-not-call list, that legislation moved very quickly. so often congress is reactive, if there is some privacy catastrophe, certainly they will move very quickly on that. another area, i think, of possible joint interest will be on the public safety spectrum. and part of that will be because representative king, who is the incoming -- or the new chairman of homeland security and senator rockefeller share an interest in how to allocate new spectrum for public safety for interoperable network. i think their approach is somewhat different from the house energy and commerce chair. so if they do introduce legislation on what's called d-block, 10 megahertz of spectrum, that that might put pressure on house congress to

react to that. >> catherine, on the opposite side of that coin, where do you see the senate and the house maybe butting heads? >> that's an interesting question. you know, the senate and the housework together, at least on the commerce committees, more than in many other committees on each side of the aisle. you know, the telecom world tends to be small and people tend to know each other. so, you know, a lot of the disagreement that you see, even though you see opposing letters being sent and that kind of thing, actually when that's going on, sometimes there are talks going on behind the scenes as well. so certainly you're going to see it, of course, on that neutrality, the way that the d's aned r's are divided. i'm sure you'll fine it over issues like reform and that sort of thing, too. but we'll see. again, over these consumer issues, you know, like privacy, you're apt to see, you know, a

bit more coming together and also on issues, like i said in the blog, where there are money issues, where it looks like money can come into the treasury. you're going to see a lot of cooperation from a lot of different places. >> coming from the d side of the aisle, as you do, were you relieved when fred upton became chairman of the house energy committee? >> what a question. [laughter] i do think that he was a good candidate for it. i wouldn't put it up as relief. i think -- i'm glad that he's the chairman and i'm glad that congressman walden will also be there. i think that he has a lot of good insight. i think that the important thing is for these committees and subcommittees to be held by people who have some kind of understanding of these highly technical areas. i think that helps everyone come to consensus and create

laws that make sense for everyone. >> trashe that paoletta, coming fra the republican side of the aisle -- >> as a telecom lawyer, i'm thrilled that he's there, because he does understand the, i. and in terms of sort of republican principles and governance, he has always articulated a preference for reliance on market solutions and technology involved. don't come up with an answer to fix a problem that isn't really there. so i think that gives a lot of comfort to folks in industry across the board and the different sectors of communications. >> getting back to privacy, who do you see being leading players on that? in the house, joe barton has been outspoken on the need for privacy legislation. who do you see sort of stepping up to the plate in the house on that issue and who do you see stepping up to the plate on that issue in the senate? >> i think the house will take a measured view and look at the issues, hold some hearings. there's somewhat of a

difference in approach to privacy. so i don't think you're going to see anyone initially jumping into that and leading the banner and saying that this is a priority. but perhaps looking at it in a more measured approach. >> do you see bobby rush's bilk at all a starting point in the house? -- bill at all being a starting point? he may be a ranking member on the subcommittee. >> there may be discussions on that, but i don't think it will be a vehicle that one of the republican members introduces. >> i think that the boucher-stearns bill that the discussion draft was issued during the last congress, i think that can serve as a basis. and i think that bill combined with mr. rush's bill can serve as a basis. again, one of the important things about representative boucher was that he understood these issues very well. his staff understood these issues very well, and he worked

together with mr. stearns very well. so i think that what you had come out of there was a pretty strong indication of what a baseline privacy bill will look like. and i think when you see a bill come out -- and i do think that bill will come out -- it will be a baseline approach in order to attract republican votes. and then there will also be elements of industry soft regulation, which, of course, the industry has been doing for many years now. >> if you would for just a second reflect on the loss of mr. boucher to the congress and to telecommunications policy. >> i was obviously disappointed. i thought that he was terrific. i thought his staff was good. again, i like his consensus approach. but i think that, again, if congressman rush comes in, i think he'll probably take lessons from mr. boucher's chairmanship and probably do the same thing in terms of seeking consensus. >> catherine mccullough, in the

last congress or seems like the last two congresses, so much of the attention has been on the energy and commerce committee and not on the senate side. is that reflective of senator rockefeller's leadership for whatever reason, or is it just because e.n.c. has that vibrancy? >> vibrancy is a good word for it. i think part of it is a matter of jurisdiction. of course, on the house side, e.n.c. has health care and on the senate side it does not. so that has a great deal to do with it. the congress committee on the senate side has always been kind of reserved in some ways. they like to have consensus, for instance, in their committee votes, you know. they don't like to have a lot of -- all the history of liking to have a lot of, you know, a lot of stuff play out in the spress usually. the two sides -- the two staffs get along very well.

they certainly did when i was there. we were directed in no uncertain terms to work it out, as my chairman told me. and, of course, senator inoue and senator stevens called each other co-chair. so on the senate side there's a definite culture issue working there that, of course, you don't have in the house often, because the house is all about rules that allow the majority, even with one vote, to ram something through, and the senate is all about the minority with one vote stopping something. so you're much more incentivized on the senate side to find consensus. >> trisha, same question. >> why is the house more vibrant? because, of course, the house is. [laughter] some of it is personality-driven, and catherine alluded to the close relationship between some of the senators. so i think -- i'll leave it at that. well, i will add that some of

the more recent chairmen are big personalities. so i think you've seen that through the culture. >> juliana. >> one area where senator kerry, who's the chairman of the communications subcommittee on the house and senate, was very vocal last year on this issue of re-strans mission disputes between broadcasters and -- restrans mission disputes between broadcasters and cable companies. do you think the f.c.c. the defer to them? >> these issues always tend to get a lot of interest in congress and for a variety of reasons. so i think, yes, it's not a priority right now, but certainly that will get bandwidth down the road. >> i think if the f.c.c. does not take care of it, and particularly when you're getting closer to the elections, that's one of the issues that resonates with the voters, that all of a sudden the dark horse issue comes up and all of a sudden it gets

resolved and gets a lot of attention. >> media ownership. will that be addressed in the 112th congress? will the rules be changed? do they need to be changed? >> do they need to be changed? >> updated for today's telecommunications world? >> i don't see it being a hot-button issues. of course, the review is going to be the review. but i think with everything else on the agenda in terms of congressional action, there are more things ahead of it on the agenda. >> there was some concern expressed last congress by some of the republican members, with some of the f.c.c.'s proposals, that perhaps given cuts in journalism budgets by media companies that the government must fund the media. and i think that causes a lot of concern. and actually, chairman walden, now chairman walden and representative pence introduced a bill on some of those issues.

so at least on the house republican side there will be close monitoring of the f.c.c.'s proposals on that, and, if necessary, there will be legislation introduced that there are concerns with some of those proposals. >> you mentioned that legislation. i think it dealt with the fairness doctrine and that's been an issue for mr. walden. do you see him pushing that in the congress? not that he hasn't made any moves in that area. >> i think because he's now claire that he won't do anything unless it's necessary, right? chairmen tend to pull back and wait to see what's important before they put their chop on the line. but as necessary. >> final question -- with today's telecommunications world, are the rules governing it outdated at this point? would you like to see an overhaul of the telecommunications acts? >> i think there needs to be an

examination of several issues. if this net neutrality issue can't get worked out reasonably quickly, then i think that that is perhaps a reason to open up larger issues. again, it's kind of been talked about for a while. that is the difficulty with telecom policy is that you have these technologies that are continually changing and it's difficult to kind of hit the moving target when it comes to making sure the government is very responsible to its voters. >> the communications act is divided by sector, and, of course, we are seeing more and more convergence in the real world. you've got tablets, which is the convergence of a lot of different technologies. you have video on your tab lett. you can also speak. and currently those different content and services are regulated by different bure yoss within the commission, so there is a bureaus within the commission, so there is