Spectrum Legislation Tops List of Tech Leftovers Awaiting Congress This Fall

Although Congress managed to clear the most pressing task from its decks by voting to raise the debt limit, lawmakers left a full plate of tech issues to deal with when they return in early September, including spectrum legislation, privacy, online piracy and taxes on mobile-phone services.

Chief among those issues is legislation that would free up more spectrum to meet surging demand for wireless broadband technologies and also create a national public-safety broadband network. The Senate Commerce Committee approved such legislation in June, and Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR), chairman of the House Commerce Committee's Communications and Technology Subcommittee, floated a draft proposal last month. Senate Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) wants to get his bill through Congress before the 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which exposed deep problems with the communications systems used by emergency first responders. An effort to attach a version of spectrum legislation to the debt-ceiling legislation enacted failed. “Despite that setback, I will continue to fight to make sure that by the 10th anniversary of 9/11, we have this bill signed into law,” Chairman Rockefeller said. While the prospects of passing legislation by that date appear slim, at least three possible avenues exist: moving it through the regular congressional process, attaching it to a package of 2012 appropriations measures that Congress will likely consider this fall, and adding it to the deficit-reduction measure that the joint select committee established by the debt-ceiling deal is expected to craft by Thanksgiving.

Privacy is another big challenge left unfinished. Congressional committees have looked at issues ranging from the privacy of mobile phones to the tracking of users on the Web to notification requirements following a cyberattack that involves the loss of consumers' personal data. And movie studios, record companies, software makers, and other copyright owners are pushing legislation that would curb online piracy on foreign websites.