Would Tauzin successor scorn aid to pubcasting?
Pubcasters’ prospects in Congress could take a dramatic turn for the worse if Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La.), chairman of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, leaves Congress as press reports have indicated.
Tauzin, whose committee oversees CPB and the FCC in the House, has reportedly accepted the presidency of the Motion Picture Association of America and could leave as soon as January, according to the New York Post. Jack Valenti, 82, has been the major Hollywood studios’ ambassador to Washington for decades.
Tauzin’s likely successors as committee chair—Reps. Michael Oxley (R-Ohio) and Joe Barton (R-Texas)—have said they don’t believe public TV and radio should receive federal funding. Though Tauzin has chastised pubcasters on occasion, he has also spoken up for adequate funding and stricter rules protecting the field’s noncommercial nature. His bills to study new funding mechanisms for pubcasting have not been adopted.
Tauzin’s resignation could change significantly the long-overdue CPB authorization bill that Congress may churn out next year. He and his Senate counterpart, John McCain (R-Ariz.), had both said they would work on bills this year to replace the 1992 authorization that now governs CPB.
The bill could affect the level of CPB and Public Telecommunications Facilities Program aid as well as pending funding requests for digital conversion and a rebuild of public TV’s satellite system. It could also change rules about underwriting, cable carriage and “broadcast flag” proposals to protect copyrights of digital TV programs.
Ken Johnson, Tauzin’s spokesman, told Current the reports that Tauzin is leaving are false. The congressman has no plans to retire and has not been offered the helm at MPAA, he said.
“If he has one foot out the door, then I’d have both feet out
the door,” said Johnson, who’s still very much on the job. But
a number of top Tauzin aides have left the Hill in recent months for lobbying
jobs, including top telecomm staffer Jessica Wallace, now at Comcast. The
exodus gave the impression to some that Tauzin was releasing his staff to
cash in on their association with him before he retired.
If Hollywood approached Tauzin about the position, “he’d be crazy
not to listen to their offer,” Johnson said. “This isn’t
a position that opens up every four years.”
MPAA spokesman Rich Taylor also denied reports about Tauzin. The position is not vacant, Taylor said, though Valenti is “moving toward the next phase of his career.” In 2002, the movie lobbyist told his board that it needed to start to thinking about his succession, Taylor said. Valenti told the New York Times last week he could retire in the next couple of years.
The latest rumors follow months of speculation that Tauzin is looking to leave the Hill for a high-paying lobbying job. His name surfaced in the search to replace Hilary Rosen as chief lobbyist for the Recording Industry Association of America.
Who might succeed Tauzin?
Oxley, a 12-term congressman who competed with Tauzin for the Commerce Committee job when former Chairman Thomas Bliley (R-Va.) retired in 2000, is a top candidate for the chairmanship. Tauzin had more seniority and got the job despite having been a Democrat earlier in his career. Oxley got the chair of a spinoff panel, the Financial Services Committee.
If Tauzin leaves the Hill, Oxley could be offered the job he once coveted, according to APTS President John Lawson. Or the two committees could be reunited, though a staff member of the Financial Services committee said that’s unlikely.
Oxley has been an outspoken opponent of funding for public TV and radio.
In the mid-’90s, he called for its privatization, suggesting it should
accept advertisements to support itself.
Since then, Oxley has built a better rapport with Ohio’s public TV stations,
Lawson reported. In his years away from telecomm issues, the congressman has
softened his opposition, Lawson added. “Where his thinking is today,
I’m not really sure,” he said.
Barton, third-ranking Republican on Commerce and a 10-term congressman from the Dallas suburbs, is the other major contender.
Barton has repeatedly said pubcasting shouldn’t receive federal funds,
according to Lawson. However, he does support aiding the system’s digital
transition, which he views largely as an unfunded federal mandate, Lawson
added.
Both Oxley and Barton would “present significant challenges” for
pubcasting’s goals on the Hill, Lawson said. While Barton is a friend
to Dallas pubcaster KERA and favors digital funding, it doesn’t mean
he’ll usher legislation through the committee to make that happen.
In a worst-case scenario, both congressmen could try to gut funding for pubcasting with an eye toward zeroing it out. But lobbyists don’t think the House or the Senate would adopt that course.
Tauzin himself has said he feels conflicted about public TV and radio. While
he supports the local services that stations provide—his spokesman used
to work at Louisiana Public Broadcasting—he objects to what he sees
as biased reporting in news and public affairs shows, Lawson said.
Ultimately, pubcasters will “work with whoever the chairman is to broaden
our base on both sides of the aisle,” he added.
A Tauzin resignation could derail attempts in the House to reauthorize CPB. “If Tauzin’s gone, all bets are off,” according to one lobbyist. “The committee agenda completely changes, and we’re not high on Barton’s list.”
Tauzin still plans to drop a reauthorization bill early next year, said Johnson. Pubcasting lobbyists had hoped Tauzin would act in 2003. But there’s no time left on the legislative calendar for that to happen, Johnson said. The Commerce Committee is busy trying to finish the energy and Medicare bills before Congress adjourns around Thanksgiving.
The Senate Commerce Committee is also postponing a CPB reauthorization until next year, said an aide to McCain. While McCain plans to present his bill this year, he won’t hold hearings until after the holidays, the aide said.
GAO probes pie-slicing
Lawson said that House and Senate authorizers are waiting partly to incorporate
the findings of a much-anticipated report on public TV issues by the General
Accounting Office.
The GAO report, ordered by Tauzin and other GOP leaders in February, is expected
to be released by year’s end. According to John Finedore, the GAO executive
heading the study, it will examine five areas of interest to congressional
leaders:
Finedore and his investigative team have met with representatives from CPB, PBS, APTS, Independent Television Service, the FCC and station managers around the country. GAO also distributed a survey to every public TV licensee—which the national organizations helped craft—inquiring about such items as the CSG review process, the Future Fund, satisfaction with CPB-supported PBS programs and whether CPB funds should be used for local programming.
Rep. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) agitated for the GAO study as he grew disenchanted with how CPB was spending its funds, according to Louisiana Public Broadcasting President Beth Courtney. Burr thought too much money was going to national programs instead of local stations.
Implications of the survey questions made PBS programming execs nervous, she said. Already strapped for funding to assemble a strong program service, PBS worried that station managers would tell GAO auditors that too much money was staying in Washington.
But, according to a survey APTS conducted of its members this summer, the
majority of PTV managers don’t want to siphon off money intended for
national programming, Lawson said. Most stations told APTS that unless there
was an alternative to funding the NPS, CPB should continue to provide support,
he added.
Web page posted Nov. 18, 2003
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