Amateur Radio Parity Act of 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, I want to, again, thank my friend, Mr. Tonko, and salute his great work on the Energy and Commerce Committee, as well as Mr. Burgess and Mr. Kinzinger. For the last two Congresses we have worked together to get this legislation to the place we are at this evening. Again, it really recognizes the passionate work and highly skilled work that over 700,000 ham radio operators conduct every day in this country.

A couple of years ago in Hartford, Connecticut, they had the Centennial Convention of the American Radio Relay League, which brought together thousands of ham operators from all over the country to share their skills and to look at the latest innovation and technology, which Mr. Kinzinger referred to and, again, talked about the networks that they collaborate on in terms of early weather warnings as well as assisting the American military.

Last Congress, we had 69 bipartisan cosponsors. This year, it grew to 126, and, again, that is because of the external grassroots pressure which these groups brought forward. Again, they have no sort of skin in the game in terms of any personal benefit. As the Congressman from Illinois said, they are all basically volunteers. But I think it is important to realize this is not just a feel-good bill. This is about really strengthening our systems of emergency services and first responders that are out there.

In the State of Connecticut in 2014 we got a pretty good taste of this when Hurricane Sandy hit. It basically struck the power grid down for about 10 days or so. In the wake of that, we saw all the advanced communication that we take for granted--whether it is cable communication or cellular communication--completely sort of fall by the wayside. So the only way that first responders could communicate, the folks who were delivering emergency medical care to the State during that time period was, in fact, going back in time and relying on the ham radio operators to make sure that these groups were in real-time communication.

So what this bill seeks to do is to rebalance what has happened out there in terms of land use restrictions that have inhibited the ability of these really hardworking volunteers--American patriots I would argue--to really perform this critical duty.

The vast majority of homes that have been built since the 1980s in this country have contained some type of deed restrictions that have inhibited that capability. As a result of this legislation, it will sort of rebalance legitimate property rights of private property owners to make sure that non-intrusive antennas and technology will be able to allow this network to continue to thrive and to do the great work that it does to support local disaster response all across the country.

I had a conversation recently with the chairman of the FCC, Tom Wheeler, who, again, as an organization going back to the 1970s, has recognized the value of amateur radio in terms of bolstering America's communication system providing kind of a redundancy system, a backup system, in case, again, the advanced stuff that we take for granted now is struck down by external events. He strongly supports this legislation.

Again, I want to salute the great bipartisan work that was done on the Energy and Commerce Committee to bring this bill after 3 long years to the floor here, and I strongly urge all the Members to support its passage.

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