House Judiciary Committee rejects Tauzin-Dingell bill

The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday rejected the Tauzin-Dingell bill, which would lift the requirement that RBOCs open their local markets to competition before offering long distance data services.

The committee sent the bill to the full House of Representatives with a recommendation to reject the measure, but not before committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) added an amendment that would shift the approval power over the RBOC’s long distance application to the U.S. Justice Department.

The amendment would effectively turn the RBOCs’ long distance data transport interests into an antitrust matter, taking the power to approve long-distance applications out of the hands of the Federal Communications Commission. In a statement released by the committee, Sensenbrenner said the overall measure was rejected because House procedures prevented the Judiciary Committee from addressing areas of the bill—beyond those covered by the amendment—that fell outside of the committee’s competition guidelines.

The House Commerce Committee, chaired by the bill’s author, Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La.), had previously approved the bill with the intention of sending it to the House floor, before Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) redirected a portion of the bill to the Judiciary Committee. It is now up the House Rules Committee to decide which version reaches the House floor.

The Tauzin-Dingell bill has become a point of enormous contention between incumbent and competitive local exchange carriers. CLECs see it as the death knell of the 1996 Telecommunications Act. Not only would the bill’s long distance provisions eliminate RBOCs incentive to open up local exchange markets, say critics, the bill also contains language limiting co-location and line-leasing requirements.

However, RBOCs aren’t happy about the amendment Sensenbrenner attached to the bill. Verizon and BellSouth both said today they favored the original bill approved by the Commerce Committee.