effrey Silva Can your beer do that?
The National League of Cities, which just wrapped up its 75th annual meeting in Kansas City, boasts to members of forcing the withdrawal of the cellular industry’s petition before the FCC seeking to pre-empt local zoning moratoria; defeating a proposed presidential executive order on federalism; delaying efforts to permit unilateral federal control over siting wireless facilities on federal property; securing 24 megahertz of broadcast spectrum for state and local emergency communications; and filing amicus briefs on behalf of cities and towns with the Supreme Court and circuit courts of appeal seeking to protect local authority in areas ranging from wireless communications to railroads to crime.
Now, dues-paying members of CTIA and PCIA, can your beer do that?
No doubt, the wireless industry believes NLC’s railroading of the Tauzin-McCain E911 federal land antenna-siting bill was a crime.
But don’t look to Vice President Gore, who addressed the NLC last Friday, for help. The veep’s not about to rock the boat with mayors and county commissioners over antenna siting. Why, he’s busy pulling together his 2000 presidential campaign team.
Speaking of which, seems those advising Gore have pressing business-some involving wireless telecom-before the federal government.
Take ex-Gore domestic policy adviser Greg Simon, who lobbies for wireless and other telecom sectors these days. Simon, who arranged a key White House meeting with MCHI representatives on a big LEO license that’s under investigation by an independent counsel, told Associated Press reporter Jonathan D. Salant last week that lobbying and Gore advice-giving are kept separate.
Also in Gore’s orbit is Peter Knight, a lobbyist implicated in the Portals probe and various campaign finance investigations. Knight ran the ’96 Clinton-Gore campaign and supposedly is in the running for Gore 2000 campaign chairman.
Then there’s Roy Neel, president of the United States Telephone Association and a former Gore chief of staff. (It hasn’t helped the firmly entrenched Baby Bells enter the long-distance market.)
Not to be overlooked is none other than Tom Downey, a former New York Dem congressman who does the bidding for L.M. Ericsson in the nation’s capital. (Some predict his close ties to Gore’s camp will keep the U.S. from ultimately taking serious action against the EU for locking out CDMA technology.)
The campaign finance stuff would be old hat had it not been incorporated into the House’s impeachment inquiry last week.
Speaking of scandal, more fireworks on alleged U.S.-China technology transfers. Lt. Col. Al Coates, who after 29 years quit the Air Force out of frustration with the lack of U.S. government support in monitoring American satellite firms in China, told ABC 20/20’s Chris Wallace the administration ignored numerous reports of infractions by Hughes Electronics Co. and others that Coates believes compromised national security.
Rep. Chris Cox (R-Calif.), chairman of the select House panel on high-tech exports to China, will submit a classified report to Congress Jan. 2. The redacted version is expected to be public in February.
