[opendtv] News: House DTV Subsidy Slammed
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: OpenDTV Mail List <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 25 Oct 2005 23:52:04 -0700
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6277751.html?display=Breaking+News&referral=SUPP&nid=2228
House DTV Subsidy Slammed
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 10/25/2005 5:17:00 PM
Opening statements on the mark-up of the House Energy & Commerce
Committee DTV transition bill saw Representative Ed Markey (D-Mass.)
sharply criticize the current 2009 hard date as unworkable, and Rep.
Fred Upton (R-Mich.) say he would propose an amendment to set aside
some money for first responders.
The bill will be marked up Wednesday morning.
Democrats generally attacked the draft bill for only setting aside
$830 billion for an analog-to-digital subsidy and for lacking any
set-aside for emergency communications (Upton's amendment would
address that concern). The Senate version has both a set-aside and $3
billion for a subsidy.
The bill as written would cut off millions of people in mid bowl
game, they argued, many of them poorer and minorities.
"Nearly 21 million households, many low-income or minority, rely
solely on over-the-air analog TV reception," said ranking Democrat
John Dingell of Michigan. "Countless others own at least some TVs
that rely on over-the-air transmission.
"So millions of American families will need a converter box costing
$60 or more just to keep watching television once analog signals
cease. House Republicans, to protect their tax cuts, would force
millions of Americans to reach into their wallets and pay a
television tax of $20 to $60 per TV set. Why should ordinary people
pay for a government decision that makes their television sets
obsolete?"
Democrats repeatedly and pointedly painted the DTV bill as another
example of reconciling the budget on the backs of the poor so that
tax breaks for the rich could be preserved.
Markey said he agreed it was necessary to set a "date certain" for
the return of analog spectrum to get that spectrum for first
responders and advanced wireless services, but he said neither goal
would be met by the current hard date Markey likened it to a
government enforced taking of private property, and asked if his
colleagues really wanted to pull the plug on Jan. 1, 2009, with sets
going dark in the middle of holiday bowl games (a point raised by
others on the committee).
Markey argued for more money for the converters, saying a remedy to
the hard-date's disenfranchised viewers was available in the $10
billion spectrum revenue (and perhaps as much as $28 billion by some
private estimates), but that the bill instead used that money for tax
breaks for the rich.
"If you are one of the analog viewers with a clicker in one hand,"
said Markey "you had better have your other hand on your wallet
because the Republicans are after both."
Upton countered that the bill was a major milestone that will set a
needed hard date, while providing adequate notice to consumers and a
"robust" assistance program in teh form of a subsidy.
The House and Senate Commerce Committees were both required to come
up with money for the treasury.
Since the DTV transition will generate up to that $28 billion in
revenues from the auction of reclaimed spectrum, the transition was
dealt with as part of a larger reconcilliation bill due to the budget
committee this month.
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