Subject: [NEXTEL-1] CAGW: FCC Commissioners Are Porkers of the Month for July '04

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 08 Jul 2004 15:51:23 -0400

[July 08, 2004]

CAGW: FCC Commissioners Are Porkers of the Month for July '04

WASHINGTON, July 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Citizens Against Government Waste
(CAGW) today named the five commissioners of the Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) Porkers of the Month for voting 5-0 to approve a plan
to swap airwave spectrum with Nextel Communications at a below-market
price. The FCC's five Porkers are Chairman Michael K. Powell and
Commissioners Kathleen Q. Abernathy, Michael J. Copps, Jonathan S.
Edelstein, and Kevin J. Martin.

The commission agreed to reduce Nextel's interference with emergency
traffic by permitting Nextel to trade some of its less desirable
airwaves for airwaves in the 1.9 Gigahertz band. The company will pay
its preferred amount of $850 million and set aside a $2.5 billion letter
of credit to relocate some public-safety groups to clearer spectrum. The
Nextel plan violates FCC policy and federal law that requires new
spectrum to be auctioned off to the highest bidder. Verizon Wireless has
stated that it would open the bidding for the 1.9 GHz spectrum at $5
billion if an auction were held.

While the FCC regulators claim to have solved a public safety issue, in
reality they capitulated to Nextel's scheme to obtain contiguous blocks
of valuable spectrum at a substantially reduced cost. Nextel is trading
its fragmented, non-nationwide spectrum in the 700, 800 and 900 MHz
bands, estimated to be worth $1.2 billion, in exchange for prime
nationwide spectrum in the valuable 1.9 GHz band, estimated to be worth
as much as $7 billion. It is ironic that Nextel is getting nearly a $5
billion windfall to "correct" an interference problem it caused in the
first place.  In a time of record budget deficits, the FCC is clueless
as to how much money an auction would bring in for taxpayers.

The swap is a clear example of corporate welfare -- a sweetheart deal
that puts rival carriers at a disadvantage by giving Nextel a valuable
public resource for practically nothing. There were several solutions
before the FCC that would have addressed the public safety issue while
protecting taxpayers. The cellular industry trade group, the Cellular
Telecommunications & Internet Association, backs a plan to give Nextel
less desirable airwaves in the 2.1 Gigahertz frequency at a price of $3
billion.  Since Congress gave the FCC the authority to use public
auctions for electromagnetic spectrum, the process has returned some
$14.4 billion since 1994.  Some in Congress have fortunately taken
notice of the FCC sticking it to taxpayers.

Responding to requests from Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), the General
Accounting Office (GAO) decided Tuesday to review whether the FCC's
spectrum-exchange proposal violates federal laws against the private
sale of public resources. Rep. Jim Nussle (R-Iowa) has introduced H.R.
4715, the Spectrum Accountability Act, to reaffirm the intent of
Congress that the FCC should use competitive bidding for the grant of
commercial spectrum. In addition, Nextel's rivals are preparing legal
challenges to the FCC decision.  For violating the law, approving a
corporate welfare giveaway hatched by Nextel, distorting the cellular
communications market, and passing up a multi- billion dollar
opportunity for taxpayers, CAGW names the Federal Communications
Commission its Porker of the Month for July 2004.  Citizens Against
Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to
eliminating waste, fraud, mismanagement and abuse in government.

Citizens Against Government Waste

CONTACT: Mark Carpenter or Tom Finnigan of the Citizens
AgainstGovernment
Waste, +1-202-467-5300

http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2004/Jul/1055120.htm