Codebreaker

Spectrum battle in congressional Super Committee

John Moe Oct 25, 2011

Does anyone else imagine the Super Committee being staffed by the Super Friends but dressed up like congress people? Like Batman and Aquaman and Wonder Woman but in business suits? Just me? Okay.

Politico reports that lobbying directed at the money-finding consortium is pretty intense. The broadcasting lobby is squaring off against the wireless industry, each seeking to get a hold of unused spectrum.

Says Politico:

“Between now and Christmas Eve is the hour of our maximum peril,” said Gordon Smith, a former Republican senator from Oregon who is now president and CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters. Smith worries hitching an auction to the deficit-reduction effort will rush the process and end up knocking broadcasters off the air.
Doing the sell to the supercommittee for CTIA-The Wireless Association, is Steve Largent, a former Seattle Seahawks wide receiver and GOP congressman from Oklahoma. “We can soften the blow, so to speak, by raising revenue without raising taxes,” Largent told POLITICO.

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