Broadband Construction Grant Guidelines Due For Release Tomorrow

Vice President Biden and newly sworn in FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski are scheduled to appear together tomorrow at a news conference in Erie, Pennsylvania, where the Obama administration is expected to announce the Notice of Funds Availability for $7.2 billion in broadband stimulus funding for construction of wireless network facilities in unserved and underserved areas of the United States. The release will include details of restrictions on those who participate in the grant program, including the FCC "network neutrality" principles already in place as well as expected new restrictions on anti-competitive behavior like delivering the signal of competing content providers at slower speeds than the network owner's own programming.

One FCC desire is that the networks built with grant funds offer the fastest available data transmission speeds. It will not be clear until the NOFA is released whether the FCC will include objective data speed requirements, or will merely give award preferences to those applicants offering the highest transmission speeds.

Unions And Abortion Become Latest Health Care Legislation Obstacles

Nineteen House Democrats have signed a letter to Speaker Pelosi pledging to vote against any healthcare reform legislation "unless it explicitly excludes abortion funding from the scope of any government-defined or subsidized health insurance plan." Signatories include Dan Boren of Oklahoma, Bart Stupak of Michigan, Tim Holden, John Murtha, Kathleen Dahlkemper and Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania, Collin Peterson and James Oberstar of Minnesota, Travis Childers and Gene Taylor of Mississippi, Li9ncoln Davis of Tennessee, Solomon Ortiz of Texas, Mike McIntyre and Heath Schuler of North Carolina, Jerry Costello of Illinois, Bobby Bright of Alabama, Steve Dreihaus and Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, and Charlie Melancon of Louisiana.

Labor unions opposed to taxation of health care benefits received from employers as income are mounting a television ad campaign in opposition to Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus and Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota, over those Senators' promotion of taxing health benefits as a means of funding health care reform. Release of similar ads attacking Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa for the same reason, and suspension of the attacks on Baucus and Conrad, has been agreed to by the unions pending the outcome of a meeting between Baucus and Jacob Hay of the Laborers International Union of North America.

Meanwhile, Vincent Panvini, lobbyist for the Sheet Metal Workers International Association, announced that his union is suspending all campaign donations and redirecting the $2 million slated for federal candidates toward media efforts against taxation of health benefits. Further opposition to taxing hard won health care benefits comes from the United Food and Commercial Workers and the Teamsters unions. Gerry Shea, of the AFL-CIO says he believes the union campaign against forcing blue collar workers out of the middle class by taking their health care benefits is losing steam in the Senate Finance Committee already as a result of union opposition.

DeKalb County Approves Wind Farm Zoning

Last week the County Board of DeKalb County, Illinois approved rezoning of nearly 200 acres of farmland in the county for construction of 119 wind turbine power generators, to be situated in Shabbona, Milan, Alton and Clinton Townships, over the objections of crowds of homeowners and other opponents who objected to destruction of what they characterized as "the county's agricultural heritage." The Board voted 16-4 to approve the zoning change, with the majority of Board members agreeing that stimulation of the local economy and the tax benefits to county government from construction and operation of the wind farm would outweigh the cultural and aesthetic considerations raised by wind farm opponents.

Highway Trust Fund Clash Sharpens

Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman Barbara Boxer announced last week, at a hearing featuring Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, that her committee is leaning toward LaHood's suggested 18 month extension of the present funding formulas for highway funding, rather than going along with House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman James Oberstar's desire to pass a six year $500 billion extension of the Fund before the current authorization expires this coming September 30. Neither Oberstar nor Boxer has advances any idea where the money for their competing proposals will come from.

Senate Environment and Public Works Ranking Member James Inhofe suggests crediting the Highway Trust Fund will the interest earned on its cash balances, which might go a long way towards covering August's expected $20 billion overdraft on the Fund, and Senator Dan Vitter of Louisiana suggests putting all unspent stimulus money into the Highway Trust Fund. Neither Senator has predicted the level of support for his suggestion. Unless someone comes up with a politically acceptable way to raise $500 billion over the next six years real soon, it looks like Oberstar's proposed six year reauthorization is dead in the water for the next year and a half, and the road and bridge segment of the construction industry will suffer accordingly.

House Narrowly Passes Climate Change Bill - Senate May Not Follow

Late last Friday night the House passed the Waxman/Markey climate change measure, as amended by the 40 page manager's amendment filed at 3 a.m. the same day, leading to extremely contentious debate on the House floor and a 61 minute long detailed review of the managers amendment by Minority Leader John Boehner which ran an hour over the debate limit set by the House Rules Committee. House tradition permits the minority leader and majority leaders to close the debate with remarks unlimited by the time rules regarding any bill.

There were 44 Democrats voting against the bill, and the 2 vote margin of passage was procured only by the first floor appearance of Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island since he checked into rehab, a last minute vote switch by Lloyd Doggett of Texas who announced at the beginning of the day that he would vote against the bill, and finally the yes vote of Alan Grayson of Florida, who was persuaded by Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman's promise of $50 million from the funds raised by the measure to fund a National Hurricane Research Center in Grayson's Florida congressional district. Defending the Waxman - Grayson deal, which was brokered openly on the House floor during the four hours of debate, Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel said "Deals are a means of bringing people together and coming up with a better bill."

Such are the workings of our federal government.

On the other side of the Capitol Rotunda, there are six different Senate committees with jurisdiction over climate change legislation. Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman Barbara Boxer says her committee will finish marking up the Senate version of climate change legislation by the end of July, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid does not expect toe other five committees to finish work on the bill before September 18, which would mean the climate change issue will not likely reach the Senate floor until October at the earliest. Look for many more months of deal making and horse trading before a final bill emerges from the conference committee.

Senator Proposes Fingerprinting Everyone Working In The United States

Senate Judiciary Committee Immigration Subcommittee Chairman Charles Schumer proposed yesterday that everyone with a job in this country should be fingerprinted to document his or her citizenship or other legal right to work in this country. He proposes to make this a provision in comprehensive immigration reform legislation expected in Congress, and pushed by the Obama administration, later this fall. No one is talking yet about how the government will pay for the taking and processing of 100 million sets of fingerprints, but you can bet if Schumer's proposal actually goes forward, the cost will somehow be pushed off onto the nation's businesses which employ the people to be fingerprinted. Going to work in the twenty first century is looking more and more like going to jail.

Contractors Association Opposes Cap And Trade Bill

With House Democratic leaders predicting passage of the Waxman/Markey cap and trade legislation tomorrow with 218 votes in favor, and President Obama throwing the full weight of his administration behind the measure, the Associated General Contractors Of America is urging its members to write their Congressmen in opposition to the bill. AGCOA, while maintaining it is in favor of "reasonable climate change policies that reduce greenhouse gas," it opposes the Waxman/Markey legislation because, according to AGCOA, the bill will increase the cost of construction, make investment in manufacturing and industrial facilities less attractive, add 77 cents to the cost of a gallon of motor fuel, and further squeeze the Highway Trust Fund, which is already falling $20 billion short of infrastructure needs in the next 12 months.

AGCOA also asserts that onerous planning requirements in the legislation will create disincentives for local and state government investment in highway and bridge projects in the future. To facilitate the efforts of its members and like minded construction businesses in opposing the legislation, AGCOA has created a web page making it easy for citizens to write their Representatives in opposition to the legislation:

http://www.bipac.net/issue_alert.asp?g=AGC&issue=GHG&parent=AGC