Copyright 2000 Federal News Service, Inc.
Federal News Service
February 17, 2000, Thursday
SECTION: PREPARED TESTIMONY
LENGTH: 3719 words
HEADLINE:
PREPARED TESTIMONY OF DON SCHELLHARDT NATIONAL COORDINATOR AND CO-FOUNDER ON
BEHALF OF THE AMHERST ALLIANCE
BEFORE THE HOUSE
COMMERCE COMMITTEE TELECOMMUNICATIONS & FINANCE SUBCOMMITTEE
SUBJECT - COMMERCE ON SPECTRUM INTEGRITY AND HR 3439, THE "RADIO
BROADCASTING PRESERVATION ACT OF 1999".
BODY:
Mr. Chairman, Members of the Telecommunications Subcommittee and Staff
of the Telecommunications Subcommittee:
My name is Don Schellhardt. I am
the Co-Founder and National Coordinator of THE AMHERST ALLIANCE. I speak to you
today on behalf of this group.
WHAT IS THE AMHERST ALLIANCE?
THE
AMHERST ALLIANCE may not be a household word. However, it is the channel for an
immense tide of human energy. We are a nationwide citizens' advocacy group,
organized and mobilized mainly over The Internet. We are composed of roughly 200
individuals, from Maine to California and Florida to Alaska. Thanks to Internet
postings, we have a "sphere of influence" which reaches hundreds, or possibly
thousands, of additional people around the globe.
We take our name from
the small but distinguished college town of Amherst, Massachusetts -- where
Minutemen were recruited, two centuries ago, and Emily Dickinson wrote her
gentle, brilliant poetry, which was then rejected by the Media Establishment of
her day. Our group was born, over dinner at Friendly's, a century after Emily:
on September 17, 1998. Roughly a third of our members, and about two thirds of
our Board Members, are people who want to obtain a Low Power Radio license and
set up a station. The rest of us, including me, are "simply" concerned citizens.
We want more choices on the dial -- and we fear that our representative
democracy is endangered by today's excessive concentrations of mass media
ownership.Every member of Amherst, without exception, has signed a document
known as THE AMHERST DECLARATION. It is our only requirement for membership --
and a copy of it may be found in APPENDIX A of this testimony.
When you
read the text of THE AMHERST DECLARATION, you may be struck by its attempt to
invoke the spirit of our nation's founders. Some consider this effort at
emulation to be pompous, or pretentious, but we see it as a humble attempt to
revive the spirit which gave birth to this nation. That spirit seems to be
missing today, in many quarters, and we like to believe the nation's founders --
wherever they may be now -- are pleased to see us trying to bring it back.
WHO IS DON SCHELLHARDT?
i am an attorney and a writer, with
several articles, untold ghostwritten speeches and one novel -- CURRENTLY
unpublished -- to my credit, i earned a B.A. in Government from Wesleyan
University in Connecticut and a law degree from George Washington University,
here in Washington, DC. Among other posts, I have been Legislative Counsel for
Representative Matthew J. Rinaldo (R-N J, retired), Director of Legislative and
Regulatory Affairs at the American Gas Association and a policy advisor on
global warming at U.S. EPA.
With Nickolaus and Judith Leggett, of
Reston, Virginia, I co-authored the Petition For Rulemaking that triggered FCC
Docket RM-9208. This Docket led, in turn, to the FCC's proposed rule, and later
its final rule, on Low Power Radio.I left Washington for a number of reasons.
One key factor, however, was my rising level of frustration with my inability to
get things done in this town.
I had worked for a succession of causes,
which I considered to be both noble and important: Coolwater-style coal
gasification, which could enable us to burn America's abundant coal, efficiently
and CLEANLY, in combined cycle powerplants ... Natural Gas Vehicles and electric
vehicles, which could further reduce our dangerous dependence on imported oil,
and greatly improve our balance of trade, while making the air we breathe much,
much healthier ... and meaningful government action on global warming, which may
be costly but is still cheaper than the price tag of global ecosystem collapse.
These three causes were my great passions as a Washington "insider".
However, I was able to make only marginal headway on Natural Gas and electric
vehicles -- and no headway at all on the other two fronts.
I did play a
role in the 1987 legislation which repealed incremental pricing and most of the
Fuel Use Act. I also played a role in enactment of the 1990 legislation that
reduced, and is still reducing, the acid rain in our atmosphere.
Still,
in the face of what needs to be done in our country, these steps forward were
painfully modest. Further, even these "modest steps forward" came only at the
cost of enormous investments of time and energy, often mustered at the expense
of progress on other crucially important priorities.I finally decided I could
accomplish more OUTSIDE The Washington System, at "the grassroots", than I could
accomplish WITHIN The Washington System.
This leads me back to our
Hearings. Topic A is Low Power Radio, but The Topic Behind The Topic is REFORM.
Reform of the media -- and, with it, reform of the political system. Less power
for the megacorporations -- and other elites. More power for the people..Reform
of The Washington System.
A SYSTEM OUT OF BALANCE
I want to
stress the need for reform -- of both the overly "consolidated" mass media AND
the current system for choosing our elected leaders.
At the same time, I
do not want to "demonize The System". There ARE good people in Washington: MANY
good people. Some of them even work for special interests. I worked for a
special interest myself, for 12 years, and my work there was honorable. I was
promoting natural gas: "America's cleanest,
most affordable fossil
fuel." Most of it drilled right here in the U.S.A. In short, I saw myself
wearing a white hat.
The truth is that Congress and the Executive Branch
NEED to hear from special interests. How can either Branch regulate
knowledgeably without SOME kind of consultation, preferably in advance, with
people in the industries they are trying to regulate? Unless special interests
have SOME kind of a voice in Washington, Washington will be "flying blind".The
problem isn't the fact that special interests have a voice.
The problem
is: All too often, nobody else does.
The System is Out Of Balance. The
special interests often speak so loudly that the voice of the people cannot be
heard.
The same can be said of the massive concentrations of
ownership in the mass media -- particularly after Congress, AND President
Clinton, decided to let megacorporations "raid the cookie jar" through the
Telecommunications "Reform" Act of 1996.
There ARE radicals, and even
Marxists, within the movement to legalize Low Power Radio stations. However,
most of us in the Low Power Radio movement - and, certainly, most of us in THE
AMHERST ALLIANCE -- recognize the value of having a viable private sector in our
economy. We even recognize the value of having SOME large corporations. With
their resources and their profit motivations, they can get things done that no
other institutions can do.
By the same token, however, there are some
things that only SMALL businesses can do. And some things that only non-profits
can do. And even some things that only INDIVIDUALS can do.
So: Few us in
Amherst want to put Fox or Disney or ABC out of business.
We just don't
want them to become so large, and control so much, that they smother everyone
else.
More to the point: We don't want them to smother US.
THE
EVIDENCE ON THE RECORD AT THE FCC
When it comes to radio, the high level
of public discontent is evident from the high level of public participation in
the FCC's Low Power Radio Dockets.
Indeed, the FCC's proposed rule on
Low Power Radio set a record for public participation in the 65-year history of
the FCC.
The proposed rule attracted more than 3,000 written comments.
Most of these 3,000 comments FAVORED Low Power Radio -- and many of them came
from individuals and small groups who had never participated in an FCC
proceeding, or for that matter any kind of governmental proceeding, before.
Clearly, there is widespread, and intensely felt, public dissatisfaction
with the status quo in radio. Clearly, there is public demand for something new.
Just as clearly, the stance of total "stonewalling" and non- negotiation
by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) tells us that this "something
new" is not going to come from the established broadcasters.
It is clear
as well that the FCC's decision to establish a Low Power Radio Service was not
"a rush to judgment".
The Commission held a 6-month comment period on
RM-9208, the previously referenced Petition For Rulemaking that was filed in
June of 1997 by Nickolaus Leggett, Judith Leggett and myself.The FCC issued
Docket RM-9208 in February of 1998:8 months after our Petition For Rulemaking
was filed. Three weeks after the FCC established this Docket, soliciting public
input on the Leggett/Schellhardt Petition For Rulemaking, an alternative
Petition For Rulemaking was filed by J. Rodger Skinner of TRS Communications in
Florida. In March of 1998, Skinner's competing vision of Low Power Radio was
assigned to Docket RM-9242 and the two Dockets were consolidated.
Thus,
the FCC spent 6 months receiving public comments on two different Low Power
Radio proposals. Over 1,000 public comments were received, many of them coming
from individual citizens and most of them urging favorable action. Then the FCC
spent several months reviewing these public comments before it drafted and
released a proposed rule -- in January of 1999.
Once the proposed rule
was issued, public comments were received over an exceptionally long period: 9
months.
Two months after the close of this 9-month comment period, the
FCC issued the final rule that is the target of H.R. 3439. Along the way, it had
granted each of several requests by the NAB for extensions of the comment
deadline(s).
In short, the FCC's final rule on Low Power Radio is the
product of very deliberate deliberations over a cumulative period of 2 years.
Further, the FCC's decision is based on abundant evidence of public demand for
this Service: far more abundant, in fact, than the evidence that the public
wants Digitalization.
DOES ANY KIND OF LOW POWER RADIO, UNDER ANY KIND
OF CIRCUMSTANCES, POSE AN UNAVOIDABLE LIKELIHOOD OF UNACCEPTABLE RADIO
INTERFERENCE?
This is the proper way to ask the question -- because H.R.
3439, the Oxley bill, would remove the FCC's authority to authorize any kind of
Low Power FM stations, anytime or anywhere ... 100 watts and 10
watts and 1 watt, in mid-town Manhattan and the prairies of Nebraska, regardless
of the technology used or the channel spacing required or the level of
regulatory oversight.
In the eyes of Representative Oxley's bill, there
is no place in America where the spectrum is open enough, and no level of
wattage where the signal is low enough, and no technology -- present or future
-- where the signal is controlled enough. Now and forever, from sea to shining
sea, FM stations of 100 watts or less pose an inherent risk of unacceptable
interference to all of those helpless, endangered 30,000 watt and 50,000 watt
stations. Needless to say, Amherst doesn't see things that way.
Neither
does the Federal Communications Commission. Thank God! The evidence for the
Oxley bill's premise is Missing In Action. The interference studies commissioned
by the NAB may predict major interference, In SOME locations. However, this has
not been the conclusion of other studies, conducted by those who do not have a
financial stake in the status quo.Alarms about radio interference are also
unsupported by evidence in "the real world."
In recent years, many
Americans, unable to afford a conventional radio station and unable to obtain a
license for an unconventional one, have taken to the airwaves without FCC
authorization. Depending on whose estimates you believe, their numbers run into
the hundreds or even the thousands.
All of these unlicensed broadcasters
have been COMPLETELY unregulated. However, even though many of these unlicensed
stations have been shut down by the FCC for violating its regulations, only a
handful have been shut down on the basis of evidence that they have actually
caused interference.
Thus, under something approaching a "worst case
scenario" -- that is, hundreds or even thousands of totally unregulated stations
on the air, many of them broadcasting in crowded urban areas -- the actual
evidence of reported interference has been minimal.
Why is this the
case?
Maybe it's because there are more "holes in the spectrum", even in
crowded urban areas, than the NAB wants to admit. Or maybe it's because
"unlicensed broadcasters", even including those left-wing "aging hippies" with
the sour dispositions, are more prudent and responsible than the NAB wants you
to know.
Or maybe both.
There is, in any event, a problem with
the NAB's logic:
WHATEVER the actual level of interference from
unlicensed broadcasters
might be, why would it INCREASE -- rather than
decrease -- after some or most of these broadcasters obtain licenses and become
regulated?
IF RADIO INTERFERENCE IS NOT A PROBLEM, IS THERE ANY OTHER
REASON TO OVERRIDE THE FCC'S AUTHORITY TO ESTABLISH A LOW POWER RADIO SERVICE?
As we read the various statements by Representative Oxley, and others
whose names appear on H.R. 3439, it appears their answer would be "No".
So far as we can tell, their sole expressed concern has been
interference. We cannot think of any other reasons to ban Low Power Radio,
either. We do consider it worthwhile to mention some of the BENEFITS of Low
Power Radio.
These benefits include more choices for radio
listeners, more opportunities for innovation, the return of decent community
coverage and -most important of all -- a much-needed increase in the free flow
of ideas, without which our country cannot remain a representative democracy for
long.
These benefits are worth fighting for -- and many everyday
Americans have in fact been doing just that.
It would indeed be a
tragedy if Congress erased these hard-won gains on the basis of inflated fears,
peddled solely by those with dollars to lose.DOES THE FCC'S NEW RULE GO FAR
ENOUGH?
Does the FCC's rule go as far as Amherst would like? No, it does
not.
Is it nevertheless a vast improvement over the status quo that
preceded it? Yes, it is.
Further, given the practical politics of
assembling a bi-partisan majority at the Federal Communications Commission, at
this time in our nation's history, this new rule may well represent the best
work that the Commission could have done under the circumstances.
We
salute the Commission and its willingness to consider, and embrace, positive
change. In particular, we commend FCC Chairman William Kennard -as well as his
indispensable ally, Commissioner Gloria Tristani -- for their vision and their
courage.
We also thank Commissioners Susan Ness and Michael Powell,
whose enthusiasm for Low Power Radio was somewhat more contained -- but who
nevertheless voted to proceed.
To those in the Low Power Radio movement
who wanted something more, I quote the words of Representative Phil Sharp (D-IN,
retired): a former member of the House Commerce Committee and a man I admire.
Phil used to say, all the time: "Let's do the doable."That's what
Chairman Kennard, and his fellow Commissioners, have done. They have done the
doable -- and we should applaud their efforts.
Having said this, the
limits of what is "doable" can change dramatically over time. They can contract,
but they can also expand.
In the case of Low Power Radio, and of media
reform and political reform in general, we expect that these limits WILL expand
-- if only because a concerned public insists on it.
In the immediate
future:
1. Amherst may ask the Commission, in a Motion For Clarification
and/or a Motion For Reconsideration, to allow LPFM licenses for Individuals as
well as organizations.
2. We may also ask the FCC to either:
(a)
license non-commercial LPFM stations which are NOT "educational"; or (b) clarify
that the "educational" category may include stations which are primarily or
exclusively oriented toward entertainment, IF their kind of entertainment is not
otherwise available on the airwaves of their community.
3. We may ask
again for Primary Service Status for LPFM stations.
4. We may ask for
greater protection of Low Power stations from "bumping" by license applications
that "warehouse" frequencies for possible future use and/or translator
applications made for anti- competitive purposes.The Amherst Board of Directors
has not yet decided how and when to seek resolution of these concerns by the
FCC. As noted earlier, a Motion For Clarification is a possibility, as is a
Motion For Reconsideration, but neither filing Is a certainty at this time.
Looking further down the road, Amherst has also made clear to the
Commission that we do not automatically oppose any kind of Digitalization -- but
we can accept Digitalization ONLY if reasonable accommodations are made to
preserve a viable, and meaningful, Low PowerRadio Service.
On the
legislative front, we ask this Subcommittee, AND Congress as a whole, to reform
the Telecommunications "Reform" Act of 1996.
A. Repeal the statutory
mandate for auctioning of all commercial radio licenses. Failing that, AT LEAST
allow room for commercial-airing Low Power stations by exempting commercial
stations from the mandatory auctions if they broadcast at 100 watts or less.
B. Reduce -- don't raise or eliminate -- the limits of how many radio
stations a single entity, including its subsidiaries and affiliates, can own.
C. Restore meaningful restrictions on CROSS-MEDIA ownership, INCLUDING
acquisitions related to The Internet. Make radio more open and competitive.
Don't let The Net follow radio's current pattern of "consolidation".
D.
Encourage - don't DIScourage! -- reasonable efforts by the FCC to combat radio
"over-consolidation" by ordering divestiture of certain radio stations.
E. While you're at it, direct the Justice Department to start enforcing
the anti-trust laws again. One Microsoft case, every 20 years or so, isn't
enough.
DOES DON SCHELLHARDT HAVE "A HIDDEN AGENDA"?
Let me
close as I began: on a personal note.
When people learn that I have no
desire to be a Low Power broadcaster, that I run Amherst on my own time and my
own dime, with no pay whatsoever for the thousands of person hours I've invested
in it ... they often start to look puzzled, or even suspicious.
"What's
in it for you?" they ask.
The bolder ones ask: "What's your 'Hidden
Agenda'?"
It's a commentary on our time that so few people will accept
pure patriotism as a major motivation. Yet, in truth, patriotism IS one of my
motivations.
I was in college during the Vietnam War. I never "dodged"
the draft, or joined the National Guard, but I did have a high enough lottery
number to stay out of the military. I don't regret that my birthday did get
matched to a number that kept me out of Vietnam: I might not be here today if it
hadn't. Nevertheless,I have always felt guilty because I believe we all SHOULD
give a year or two of service to our country.
So ... I put in my year of
service around 50 instead of around 20. Call me a late bloomer. And I spread the
year or two over two years or three -because I had to leave enough room in my
schedule to make enough money to keep me alive. But I did serve my country, even
if the service was delayed -and I did fight for freedom, even if the enemy was
here at home.
So much for my noble motivations! I also had
self-interested motivations. Not exactly "a hidden agenda" ... but an agenda
that might not be too visible until you got to know me.
First, Low Power
Radio added meaning to my life at a time when I needed it desperately. Most of
us like to feel that we add something positive to the planet by being here --
but some of us NEED to feel that way. We need to feel it the same way we need to
drink our water and breathe the air.
I'm one of that second group.
Founding Amherst gave me a reason to "keep on keepin' on" -- at a low point in
my life.
Second, I'm trying to gain name recognition and build a
political base -because I'd like to be a Member of Congress. In fact, I'd like
to have a seat on the House Commerce Committee.
I've served my time as
an advisor and an aide. I won't come back to Washington just to do that again.I
want to be a player -- perhaps right on this Committee.
There are
several reasons why I've never run, but most of them have faded into the past.
Now there's only one reason I don't run for Congress:
I haven't
got the money to run. I'm not even close.
Further, being an independent
thinker (and an independent feeler), I don't see any special interests I can
approach for the money without selling out my conscience.
So I'm stuck
On The Outside, Looking In. Along with the other 99% of the American people who
can't afford to run for Congress.
So far, Mr. Chairman, founding Amherst
has been the next best thing to being up there on the Commerce Committee with
you. In fact, I may just start up another national organization, with a broader
agenda and a broader base, and push for change on a bigger scale -- from my
place On The Outside, Looking In.
And maybe, somewhere along the line,
I'll get my chance to run -- and win. In the meantime, all of this makes my work
for reform very, very personal. Of course, most of the folks in Amherst don't
want a seat in Congress.
They just want a VOICE in the national
dialogue. But they don't feel they have one now -- and, believe me, Mr.
Chairman, for them it's personal, too.
CONCLUSION
Mr. Chairman,
and Members and Staff of this Subcommittee, we in THE AMHERST ALLIANCE urge you
to begin moving -- this year, this month, this day -- toward the kind of media
reform and political we need to revive and maintain our representative
democracy.
Supporting the new Low Power Radio Service Is quite literally
THE LEAST that Congress can do. It is a minimal step ... a "down payment" on
real reform.
Low Power Radio is as clearcut as "reform" issues ever get.
To the best of our knowledge, ALL of the institutions which oppose it
have a direct financial stake in the status quo. To the best of our knowledge,
NOT ONE financially impartial group or institution is against it.
Politically, tough choices don't get any easier than this one.
If Congress cannot summon the courage to embrace reform on the Low Power
Radio issue, how can the people of America trust this Congress to make the hard
decisions of the future?
END
LOAD-DATE:
February 19, 2000 
