As Congress scrambled to come up with a budget for fiscal year 2001 by its deadline this Saturday, rumors circulated that NextWave Telecom Inc. was in negotiations to settle its bankruptcy dispute with the Federal Communications Commission.
Legislation that would allow the FCC to take back the licenses of bankrupt companies has been included in a Senate committee version of the FCC’s budget. Such language is not included in the House of Representatives’ passed version.
Since time is so short, lawmakers are reportedly skipping the Senate and directly negotiating all of the remaining 11 appropriations bills with the White House.
Under this scenario, the leadership of the House Judiciary Committee wrote a letter on Tuesday urging the House to stick to its position against the FCC.
“By legislatively pre-empting the bankruptcy code as well as other applicable laws, this provision gives a governmental creditor complete and unfettered control over certain bankruptcy assets in which licensees and other creditors have legitimate interests,” said Reps. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), chairman, George Gekas (R-Pa.), chairman of the commercial and administrative law subcommittee; John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.), ranking member; and Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), subcommittee ranking member.
Whether or not negotiations are taking place is unclear.
NextWave recently made an offer to settle that was rejected by the FCC.
“We have made settlement offers to the commission,” confirmed Michael Wack, NextWave deputy general counsel, when asked if the company was negotiating with the FCC.
The FCC and the wireless industry appeared to be trying to use the news media to squelch what it described as unfounded rumors about FCC-NextWave negotiations. RCR Wireless News was told several times to call Linda Paris, acting director of the FCC’s Office of Media Relations.
Paris confirmed that the FCC is not negotiating with NextWave.
