House panel tees up incentive auction hearing

House Subcommittee on Communications Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR) isn’t letting his new NRCC duties interfere with attending to his old job – he’s extended an invitation to all five FCC commissioners to discuss television incentive auctions, on the schedule for December.

The session will be held Wednesday 12/12/12, with other pertinent details to be announced.
Chairman Walden stated, “Our subcommittee carefully crafted the legislation to create jobs by getting more spectrum into the pipeline to meet consumer demands for more mobile broadband, and to allocate a portion of auction proceeds toward build-out of a public safety broadband network, while ensuring broadcasters are treated fairly. I look forward to the testimony of all five FCC commissioners as we examine what the FCC can do to advance those goals, and what it should avoid.”

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and commissioners Robert McDowell, Mignon Clyburn, Jessica Rosenworcel and Ajit Pai are the only listed witnesses.

RBR-TVBR observation: The incentive auction train has already left the station. This would appear to be a relatively non-controversial benchmarking, information-gathering, advice-giving session. Congress has already done its part, passing the legislation the FCC needed to embark down the incentive auction tracks. We suspect Chairman Walden and other on the committee would like to find out how far its traveled along with learning some details about what kind of regulatory cargo its carrying.