House postpones vote on Tauzin-Dingell

The leadership of the House of Representatives abruptly decided late last week to postpone until March 2002 a vote on the broadband deregulation legislation sponsored by Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., and John Dingell, D-Mich.

All indications were that House leadership was pushing hard to hammer out compromise language in order to get the bill onto the floor before the holiday recess. According to Glenn Waldorf, analyst with UBS Warburg, House Republicans were the culprits behind the about-face, telling party leadership they didn’t want to vote on the controversial bill. “So they decided to postpone the vote rather than risk a potential defeat,” Waldorf said.

A Tauzin spokesperson said controversy had nothing to do with the decision. Instead, House members simply couldn’t resist the opportunity to break early for the weekend and “get some holiday shopping done.”

“We did not pull this bill; we wanted it to get to the floor,” said the spokesman. “But with no other ‘must-do’ bills on the calendar, they went to Billy, and he understood completely. This bill will be no less controversial in March. Anyone trying to avoid controversy [by delaying the vote] would only be postponing their agony.”

The spokesman stressed the vote is not being delayed due to fear that the bill has lost support in the House, as Waldorf suggested.

“We expect the bill to pass by a wide margin,” he said. “We have the champagne on order.”

Should the bill eventually pass the House, the celebration might be short lived. Standing in the way is Sen. Ernest “Fritz” Hollings, D-S.C., the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, who has vowed to defeat Tauzin-Dingell.

In August, Hollings introduced a bill in the Senate—co-sponsored by Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii and Ted Stevens, R-Alaska—that calls for increased regulation of the Bell companies and stands in direct contrast to Tauzin-Dingell. Should it become law, Hollings’ bill would grant the FCC the authority to force structural separation on incumbent carriers deemed to be in violation of the competition requirements of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Guilty carriers would have one year to execute the separation.