[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 17 (Wednesday, January 28, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E161]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                             DTV DELAY ACT

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                               speech of

                         HON. EDWARD J. MARKEY

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, January 27, 2009

  Mr. MARKEY of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend you for 
quickly putting this Senate legislation (S. 328) before the House for 
immediate consideration. This is a bill that is responsive to the slate 
of digital television issues confronting consumers and the television 
industry.
  In several weeks, without immediate action, millions of Americans may 
remain unprepared for the digital television transition. Mr. Speaker, 
as you know, I have had a long interest in the digital television 
transition. I held the very first hearing on ``High Definition TV'' in 
October of 1987--more than 20 years ago. In 1990, I battled hard and 
successfully as then-Chairman of the House Telecommunications and 
Finance Subcommittee to get the Federal Communications Commission to 
switch from pursuing an ``analog'' HDTV standard to a ``digital'' 
standard. Moreover, I fought to build into the Telecomm Act in 1996 the 
appropriate way in which broadcasters could utilize ``spectrum 
flexibility'' to multiplex the digital signal into several video 
programming channels or offer wireless interactive television or 
information services. And I pushed unsuccessfully in the context of the 
1997 budget battles to prohibit the sale of ``analog-only'' televisions 
by the year 2000--an amendment that was opposed by every Republican in 
our Committee markup in 1997. The result was over a hundred million 
analog-only sets were sold into the marketplace even as the government 
was stipulating it intended to turn off the analog TV signal. The 
failure to mandate ``dual tuner'' TVs sooner has compounded the 
difficulty of this transition immeasurably by increasing the base of TV 
receivers that need converter boxes to receive digital TV signals.
  Most recently, for the last two years as the Telecommunications and 
Internet Subcommittee Chairman, I convened six DTV hearings, requested 
and received three Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports, and 
wrote numerous oversight letters to the FCC, to NTIA, and to industry 
and consumer representatives in headlong pursuit of ensuring a 
successful digital television transition on February 17th.
  At the last DTV hearing that we held the second week of September--
just after the Wilmington, North Carolina switch-over test--the GAO 
testified:

       ``NTIA is effectively implementing the converter box 
     subsidy program, but its plans to address the likely increase 
     in coupon demand as the transition nears remain unclear. . . 
     . With a spike in demand likely as the transition date nears, 
     NTIA has no specific plans to address an increase in demand; 
     therefore, consumers might incur significant wait time before 
     they receive coupons as the transition nears and might lose 
     television service during the time they are waiting for the 
     coupons.''

  In response, I asked the Acting NTIA Administrator to give the 
Subcommittee a contingency plan for dealing with the expected surge in 
coupons within 30 days. Now, that contingency plan did not arrive in 30 
days. Instead, it arrived to us on November 6th--just after Election 
Day. The NTIA's ``Final Phase'' plan did not echo the GAO's alarm 
bells, but rather stated the following:

       ``This Plan demonstrates that the Coupon Program has both 
     sufficient funds and system processing capabilities to 
     achieve this goal . . . . and to do so without the creation a 
     large backlog. Also, NTIA has built flexibility into the 
     Program to respond to various or unexpected events. Moreover, 
     based on actual, cumulative redemption data, NTIA would not 
     exhaust the authorized $1.34 billion in coupon funding 
     despite increased demand leading up to the analog shut-down 
     on February 17th, and, in fact, may return as much as $340 
     million to the U.S. Treasury.''

  That's from the NTIA just over two months ago. ``No problem,'' the 
agency is saying. In essence the agency is telling Congress, ``We have 
a plan to deal with the surge and we don't need any more money. No 
large backlog. And we'll have hundreds of millions of dollars left 
over.''

  Now, why is this important? It is important because we were actually 
in session in November. We could have acted during the ``lame duck'' 
session if the Bush Administration had said, ``yes, we will likely have 
a shortfall'', or ``please, Congress, let's err on the side of caution 
and budget a couple hundred million more just in case . . .''. Yet NTIA 
told us all just the opposite. The agency said everything was fine and 
they didn't need additional money for coupons.
  In late December, I asked for an urgent status update on the program. 
That's when NTIA wrote back to me--on December 24th--stating that a 
waiting list was going to begin in January of this year because the 
coupon program was hitting its funding ceiling. The agency indicated 
that to solve this issue and spend up to the $1.34 Billion in the 
underlying statute for coupons that another 250 million dollars at a 
minimum might be needed. And that amount would not necessarily reflect 
the actual demand for coupons the agency was newly projecting. The 
waiting list now represents approximately 3 million coupons.
  In an attempt to respond quickly, I reached out the first week we 
returned here in January to Ranking Member Joe Barton (R-TX) and said 
if we work together on an accounting fix we could start to address the 
waiting list issue and get the coupons flowing to consumers again and 
buy some time. I want to thank Rep. Barton for his willingness to 
proceed on such a bill.
  But that effort has simply become overtaken by events. If we passed 
it and also gave NTIA a couple hundred million dollars for additional 
coupons in a measure that passed through the House and through the 
Senate today, and arrived to the President's desk this evening, we 
simply wouldn't be able to address the backlog and get coupons out to 
people who have requested them by February 17th.
  Not every media market will be as unprepared as others on February 
17th. I know that in the Boston market, our local commercial and 
noncommercial broadcasters, as well as our local cable operators, have 
worked diligently to be ready on February 17th and I commend them for 
their model efforts. Yet even in Boston, it is important to note that a 
recent test brought a flood of calls to consumer call centers from 
citizens confused about or unprepared for the switchover. Many other 
media markets, in part due to the demographic makeup of such markets, 
will have an even greater risk of significant dislocation without 
immediate action. The Bush Administration has simply left us with so 
little time to make the needed adjustments on a national basis absent a 
short, one-time delay.
  So, although this is the last place we all wanted to be, and in spite 
of the fact that we toiled mightily to make this effort work, it is my 
judgment that a short delay is in the public interest in order to 
protect consumers. I urge passage of this emergency DTV legislation.

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