Markey Draft Keeps Feb. 17 DTV Transition
Bill Flies In Face Obama Team Request For Delay
By Ted Hearn -- Multichannel News, 1/9/2009 6:16:00 AM
Washington
-- Rep. Edward Markey (D. Mass.) is circulating a draft bill on the digital TV transition that would retain the Feb. 17 cutoff of analog TV signals, despite a request Thursday by the co-chairman of the Obama transition team for a delay.
Markey's bill would waive a budget law to allow the Commerce Department to begin mailing out millions of $40 coupons to consumers who need to buy digital-to-analog converter boxes to watch TV with an antenna.
The bill would also allow Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration to assume that 70% of coupons mailed will be used. Current laws force NTIA to assume that all unexpired coupons will be used, even though the one-year-old program has seen nearly half of all coupons go unused before their 90-day expiration.
Markey, who on Jan. 8 gave up the chairmanship of the House Communications, Technology and the Internet Subcommittee, remains influential on communications policy. In 2008, he held numerous hearings on the DTV transition.
The budget law, called the Antideficiency Act, has forced NTIA to create a waiting list that includes requests for 1.35 million coupons. NTIA can't issue new coupons until old ones have expired, which recycles money into the program. NTIA has re-issued 334,000 expired coupons since Sunday, an NTIA spokesman said Friday.
On Thursday, Obama transition co-chair John Podesta called for a delay, citing NTIA's coupon program backlog and claiming that too many poor, rural and elderly residents were unprepared for the analog TV cutoff so soon after new the president takes office on Jan. 20.
"With coupons unavailable, support and education insufficient, and the most vulnerable Americans exposed, I urge you to consider a change to the legislatively-mandated analog cutoff date," Podesta said in a letter to the bipartisan leadership of the House and Senate commerce committees.
Obama's call for delay was sharply criticized by Rep. Joe Barton, a senior House Republican who helped design the DTV transition law signed by President Bush in February 2006.
Barton decried Obama’s suggestion, saying “ditching the deadline and slathering on more millions of taxpayer dollars...is just panic."
U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said Friday that he supported retention of Feb. 17 as the transition date.
"We think the statutory date made sense, and its certainty has been a key element of efforts by the government and the private sector to raise awareness and drive preparedness. That's why we supported it. We still do. We're working closely to ensure a smooth transition, and we'll let the next administration comment on the President-elect's views."
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