[Congressional Bills 109th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 998 Introduced in House (IH)]






109th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 998

 To preserve local radio broadcast emergency and other services and to 
 require the Federal Communications Commission to conduct a rulemaking 
                           for that purpose.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             March 1, 2005

Mr. Pickering (for himself and Mr. Gene Green of Texas) introduced the 
   following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and 
                                Commerce

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To preserve local radio broadcast emergency and other services and to 
 require the Federal Communications Commission to conduct a rulemaking 
                           for that purpose.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Local Emergency Radio Service 
Preservation Act of 2005''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    The Congress finds and declares the following:
            (1) A primary objective and benefit of the Nation's 
        regulation of radio broadcasting is the local origination of 
        programming. There is a substantial governmental interest in 
        ensuring its continuation.
            (2) Local broadcast radio stations are an important source 
        of local news and weather programming and other local broadcast 
        services critical to the public.
            (3) Local radio broadcasting is particularly important in 
        times of emergencies or disasters when other means of 
        communications may not be available.
            (4) Radio is the most ubiquitous of all mass media, with 
        receivers located in almost every home and automobile in the 
        country.
            (5) Because radio receivers are universally available and 
        frequently battery-powered or located in automobiles, the 
        Federal Communications Commission's Media Security and 
        Reliability Council concluded that ``radio broadcasters are 
        likely to be the last line of defense for communicating with 
        the public under extremely adverse conditions that could result 
        in the event of a local disaster''. There is a substantial 
        governmental interest in ensuring the continuation of this 
        capability.
            (6) Broadcast radio programming is supported by revenues 
        generated from advertising broadcast over stations. Such 
        programming is free to listeners. There is a substantial 
        governmental interest in promoting the continued availability 
        of free radio programming.
            (7) Because radio programming is supported by advertising, 
        the ability of local stations to continue to provide local news 
        and other services and to ensure communications during 
        emergencies could be jeopardized by a diversion of the 
        listening audience away from local radio programming.
            (8) When the Federal Communications Commission authorized 
        the digital audio radio satellite service, it stated that it 
        remained ``committed to supporting a vibrant and vital 
        terrestrial radio service for the public''.
            (9) When the Federal Communications Commission authorized 
        the digital audio radio satellite service, it understood that 
        digital audio radio satellite service licensees would provide 
        only national programming and accepted the contentions of the 
        proponents of digital audio radio satellite service that the 
        new service would not affect local broadcasting because ``the 
        ability to offer local content will give terrestrial 
        broadcasters a competitive advantage''.
            (10) Digital audio radio satellite service licensees have 
        announced plans to offer local traffic and weather channels 
        through the use of their satellites.
            (11) Developments in receiver technology will enable 
        digital audio radio satellite service licensees to offer new 
        services in the future, including localized content that may be 
        intermixed with other national content or that would be 
        selected based on the listener's location.

SEC. 3. LIMITS ON LOCALIZED DIGITAL AUDIO RADIO SATELLITE SERVICE 
              PROGRAMMING.

    The Federal Communications Commission shall revise section 25.144 
of its regulations (47 CFR 25.144) to provide that--
            (1) digital audio radio satellite service licensees shall 
        not, using any capability either on a satellite or in a radio 
        receiver, provide services that are locally differentiated or 
        that result in programming being delivered to consumers in one 
        geographic market that is different from the programming that 
        is delivered to consumers in any other geographic market; and
            (2) digital audio radio satellite service repeaters shall 
        be restricted to simultaneously retransmitting the programming 
        transmitted by satellite directly to digital audio radio 
        satellite service subscribers' receivers, and may not be used 
        to distribute any information not also transmitted to all 
        subscribers' receivers.

SEC. 4. FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION RULEMAKING ON LOCAL SERVICES 
              BY SATELLITE PROVIDERS.

    Within 270 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the 
Federal Communications Commission shall complete a rulemaking 
proceeding to determine whether digital audio radio satellite service 
licensees should be permitted to provide locally oriented services on 
nationally distributed channels, taking into account--
            (1) the impact of locally oriented satellite radio services 
        on the viability of local radio broadcast stations and their 
        ability to provide news and other services to the public;
            (2) the ability of digital audio radio satellite service 
        licensees to afford listeners the same emergency and other 
        information as is afforded listeners of local broadcast radio 
        stations;
            (3) whether digital audio radio satellite service licensees 
        committed to providing only national services in order to 
        obtain authorization for their service; and
            (4) whether the same level and quality of emergency 
        communications services could be provided to consumers by 
        digital audio radio satellite service licensees as by local 
        broadcast radio stations.
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