NAB, Others Oppose Spectrum Fees In Letter To Deficit 'Supercommittee'

Opposes Fee

The NAB has joined the CTIA, NATIONAL RELIGIOUS BROADCASTERS, the SATELLITE INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION, and the PCIA in sending a letter to the "supercommittee" of the Senate and Congress expressing its opposition to the portion of the OBAMA administration's "American Jobs Act" that allows the FCC to impose spectrum user license fees.

The brief letter to the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction said that Section 278 of the proposed jobs bill, which would allow the FCC to raise over $4 billion with spectrum fees, "ignores the considerable annual regulatory fees already borne by our respective industries and the tens of billions of dollars in private capital expended annually by wireless, satellite and commercial, non-commercial and public radio operators alike to build networks and invest in the infrastructure necessary to serve the American public."  

Asserting that their industries are "extremely efficient" in using spectrum, the groups add that they "do not believe ... that the solution to unemployment lies in the imposition of new fees and taxes that will inevitably shift money from much needed capital investment in state-of-the-art communications technologies critical to the health of the American economy."

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