The House telecom bill could achieve committee passage by March, House Commerce Committee Chmn. Joe Barton (R-Tex.) said Wed. at a conference CQ and Dittus Communications sponsored. Barton said he would like to get a bill marked up and passed in the Telecom Subcommittee in 2005, with full panel passage in March. “I’m not going to guarantee this is going to happen, but we’re working towards that,” Barton said, acknowledging a “miscommunication problem” with Commerce Committee Ranking Member John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.). Dingell and Markey objected strenuously to changes between the bill’s first and 2nd draft and Barton’s failure to consult them in the process. Barton said he wanted to get the draft moving quickly, so he released the bill before reaching consensus with Dingell and Markey.nnBut consensus won’t be without some effort: The 2nd draft includes at least 30 policy changes that include “major differences” between what the Democrats want and what Barton has written, Markey said. “Mr. Dingell and I are going to work with the majority to balance out the bill,” he said, hinting it would be possible to reconcile the divergences. But for now, he said, “considerable differences” remain to be addressed. Markey said he’s unhappy with the bill’s net neutrality provisions and a provision that would let a provider buy out a competitor in a specific market, which he said could lead to a “one-wire world.”
展开▼
