action is taking place in the senate where a bipartisan support from senator rockefeller and senator hutcheson, a bill actually proposes a solution that we strongly support. >> jack brown, do you agree with the necessity of the d-block? >> yes, i do. our biggest concern and public safety is reliability. we just feel the public safety committees should have control over the d-block and be able to set it up and not necessarily have to depend on outside carriers. >> also joining us this tim sparks, homeland security reporter for congressional quarterly. >> looking at how long this has seemingly taken, everybody seems to think it is a good idea to have interoperability in communications. what are the obstacles? what are the problems? why hasn't this happened yet? but i will tell you my view. that is that there are people who believe that there are different ways of approaching this solution that the way that public sector believes. we have growing bipartisan support, both in the house and the senate to support what we believe is the right solution, and that is basically a language that is then sen

. >> senator hutcheson, you and senator nelson had a press release last week that somebody was undercutting the u.s. space program and you have an ongoing investigation to the delay in delivering this. with that investigation continue and are you satisfied now? >> i think that we certainly the committee and senator rockefeller and i will discuss the investigation, and if there are parts of it that we need to close we will talk about that. i haven't been privy to exactly where they are we have been frustrated. i think that is no secret by the time delay. i have felt that there was some effort underneath somewhere to delay until it was too extensive, and it came to the head when there was a week that issued hypothetical set of circumstances which would double the cost of this space launch system committed no one ever suggested the hypothetical, and yet it was reported as my gosh the white house has sticker shock and that brought it to the head because nothing was factual and that's when senator nelson and i just came out pretty forcefully saying this is sabotage. so i think that now that the

thanks to the commitment of senators rockefeller and hutcheson, this was approved by the commerce committee on a bipartisan vote. but it still has not become law. the spectrum crunch loses and costs are significant and growing every day. right now, about 20 billion americans -- 20 million americans could not get broadband at home even if they wanted it. broadband is just not available in their communities. we cannot afford tens of millions of americans to be left out of the broadband economy. that is why we are moving to modernize the universal service fund for broadband. last century, our country made a bold commitment to achieve universal access to the predominant communications technology of the time, analog telephone service. but now, subsidizing the past is standing in the way of advancing the future. earlier this year, the sec launched a procedure to modernize this outdated program from telephone to broadband, transitioning wasteful spending to an efficient connect america fund. the performance we are pursuing will boost broadband and meaningfully create jobs. we are in the home stret