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Watchdogs Pen FCC Porkers
WASHINGTON -- It's only nine days into July, but Citizens Against Government Waste has already named its Porkers of the Month: the five commissioners of the Federal Communications Commission.The FCC commissioners -- Chairman Michael K. Powell and members Kathleen Q. Abernathy, Michael J. Copps, Jonathan S. Edelstein, and Kevin J. Martin -- voted unanimously to approve a plan to swap airwave spectrum with Nextel Communications at a below-market price, the watchdog group said.According to Citizens Against Government Waste, 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, the watchdog group asserted. 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, Citizens Against Government Waste said commissioners 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."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," the group said. "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, the group noted.Since Congress gave the FCC the authority to use public auctions for electromagnetic spectrum, the process has returned some $14.4 billion since 1994. Responding to requests from U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-New Jersey, the General Accounting Office decided Tuesday to review whether the FCC's spectrum-exchange proposal violates federal laws against the private sale of public resources. Rep. Jim Nussle of 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.Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, mismanagement and abuse in government. Visit Citizens Against Government Waste at www.cagw.org "