STELA Reauthorization Act of 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. WELCH. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Today, Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 4572, the STELA Reauthorization Act, a bill that allows satellite providers to continue to offer broadcast television programming to their subscribers.

Americans across the country will benefit from reauthorizing the expiring communications and copyright statute that allows satellite customers to have access to broadcast content, but it particularly benefits rural communities, a concern of many of us in this body. Folks from Vermont are going to benefit by this. They rely heavily on satellite for access to video programming.

The STELA Reauthorization Act is the work product of two committees, the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Judiciary Committee. Because of the bill's complexity, both substantively and procedurally, the Communications and Technology Subcommittee held a series of hearings starting early last year to examine the various issues affecting our Nation's ever-evolving video marketplace. As a result, H.R. 4572 includes several targeted provisions designed to improve regulatory parity in the video marketplace.

One, the bill prohibits two noncommonly owned broadcasters from jointly negotiating for retransmission consent with cable and satellite companies.

Two, the bill also includes a compromise on the deadline for broadcasters to unwind certain joint sales agreements in an attempt to keep intact the FCC's local broadcast ownership rules.

The final provision we are voting on today strengthens the waiver process both for the broadcasters seeking to maintain their joint sales agreements, as well as for the FCC looking to streamline waiver applications.

In addition, the bill eliminates the FCC's integration ban for cable set-top boxes, a rule that was designed to help promote a retail market for cable set-top boxes that regrettably is not working as intended.

To allow independent manufacturers of set-top boxes a chance to compete, the FCC requires both cable companies and third-party set-top box manufacturers to rely on the same piece of technology to decrypt their signals, called the CableCARD.

Not only has this regime not resulted in the kind of competition Congress envisioned, energy experts told us that the CableCARD actually creates significant energy inefficiencies. So our bill takes this rule off the books, but does not place any forward-looking restrictions on the FCC's authority to continue to promote retail competition for set-top boxes.

These narrow changes only begin to scratch the surface of the broken video marketplace. In my view, Congress should revisit the entire video regime and update the corresponding laws to better represent the 21st century marketplace, to drive competition, and, most importantly, to provide more benefits to consumers.

The various stakeholders, from distributors to programmers to broadcasters and content providers, have all been able to reap financial rewards, as they should, in this video marketplace, but my concern and the concern of many of us is that the consumer has been left out of the equation.

They have paid, on average, twice the rate of inflation annually for cable over the past 20 years. I understand there are a lot of costs that go into the overall rate to consumers, but it is time for the consumers' concerns to be heard and responded to.

I want to thank Chairman Upton and Chairman Walden for working with Ranking Members WAXMAN and ESHOO and Democrats--thank you, gentlemen--on the bipartisan compromise on this bill.

I urge my colleagues to support the passage of this bill today, but I do hope that this is only the beginning, and we can work together on a more comprehensive bill to address the broken aspects of the video marketplace.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. WELCH. Mr. Speaker, I congratulate Mr. Latta and Mr. Green for their very good work in making a good bill better. I want to also salute Mr. Upton and Mr. Walden for their good work, working closely in partnership with Mr. Waxman and Ms. Eshoo.

We have no further speakers, so I urge a ``yes'' vote on this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Vermont for his kind words and his good work on this legislation. Certainly, I recognize our counterparts on the Democratic side, Mr. Waxman and Ms. Eshoo, who have worked tirelessly on this bill, as well as their staff: Shawn Chang, Margaret McCarthy, and David Grossman. Also, our staff, David Redl; my senior policy adviser, Ray Baum; and Grace Koh, all of whom have spent a lot of time working this through.

It seems interesting that we get to this point and it kind of goes naturally, but there is a lot of work that went in to getting it to this point. So I thank our staff and the Members who worked with us in a very good-spirited way.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I urge the House to approve this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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