Hill Turf Fight May Hamper Markey on Telecom

HILL TURF FIGHT MAY HAMPER MARKEY ON TELECOM
[SOURCE: tvnewsday, AUTHOR: Kim McAvoy]
If House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Telecommunications Subcommittee Chairman Ed Markey (D-MA) go through with plans to create a new committee on climate change and energy independence, then House Energy & Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-MI) could retaliate by underminining Rep Markey's telecom initiatives. Any initiative that Markey’s subcommittee takes ultimately has to go through Dingell’s parent Energy and Commerce Committee. Says one Hill insider, “Dingell’s got a long memory. One day, there will be something that Markey desperately needs and it will be very difficult for him.” Indeed, there is one unconfirmed report that Chairman Dingell has already given his blessing to Congressman Mike Doyle (D-PA), a senior Telecom Subcommittee member, to work around Chairman Markey on telecom issues. Broadcast lobbyists like the idea of a less effective Chairman Markey. An old-fashioned liberal, he is attuned to broadcasting’s critics and likely to favor heavy doses of regulation and public interest obligations. Indeed, Rep Dingell has sometimes helped broadcasters by curtailing some of Rep Markey’s more regulatory-minded proposals. “Now with this blood feud over jurisdiction, the next time Markey does something the industry doesn't like, I think the Dingell people might be even more receptive to bopping him back,” says one industry source.
http://www.tvnewsday.com/articles/2007/01/24/daily.2/