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from: National Journal

Technology Daily

Senate Judiciary Panel Eyes Telecom Proposal

By Sarah Lai Stirland

(Wednesday, May 10) The Senate Judiciary Committee is likely to seek a role in reshaping telecommunications law, according to a committee aide.

At least three panel members are concerned about some of the issues addressed in the telecommunications bill crafted by Senate Commerce Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and unveiled last week, the aide said.

"Net neutrality is something we have significant jurisdiction over," the aide said, referring to the question of whether the Bell telecommunications and cable companies should be barred from charging Internet companies for speedier content delivery. "It's basically a vertical integration issue that involves competition policy, not directly telecommunications policy."

Three senators on the Judiciary panel also are concerned about antitrust, copyright policy, distance learning and rights-of-way issues presented in the telecom bill. They include Judiciary ranking member Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Herb Kohl, D-Wis.

A spokesman said Kohl has not sought to take any action on the telecom reform bill, and noted that the committee already has plans to examine competition policy issues in a hearing about the proposed AT&T and SBC Communications merger later this month.

Senate Judiciary members' echo recent jurisdictional concerns voiced by House Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis.

In a May 1 letter to House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., Sensenbrenner also mentioned that his panel has jurisdictional oversight over rights-of-way issues and program access guidelines that act like compulsory copyright licensing rules. Sensenbrenner is seeking a sequential referral on the telecom legislation approved by the House Energy and Commerce Committee last month.

The three senators' concerns about competition and copyright issues in an update to telecom law are no surprise: They have voiced concerns about competition policy in previous debates and in oversight hearings of mergers between communications companies.

During a 2002 hearing about the merger between AT&T Broadband and Comcast, for example, Hatch expressed concerns over vertical mergers between content companies and pipe owners -- such as the 2000 acquisition of Time Warner by America Online.

He said during the hearing that he was not as vexed about the Comcast marriage with AT&T. He indicated at the time that he was primarily concerned about companies acting as gatekeepers in the digital world -- and their potential for abusing that power.

He added that he was just as concerned about content issues on broadband networks as he was in the arena of cable television programming.

"This transaction does not involve the aggregation of the ownership of content with an online service provider and the cable pipes to deliver the content, creating powerful incentives to favor one's own content over competing content," he said at the time.

The Judiciary aide said Hatch is "on the fence" in the pending network neutrality debate, but added, "On policy, he's not completely unsympathetic."

Hatch does not fully agree with Democrats who have spoken out in favor of net neutrality provisions, said the aide.

"[But] I wouldn't be as surprised if in the end, he wants something a little bit more than the FCC study language that Stevens put in, the aide said. Stevens' bill would only require the FCC to study the net neutrality issue.