Radio Spectrum Inventory Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. MARKEY of Massachusetts. I thank the gentleman very much, and I thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Boucher) for his leadership on this critical issue, along with the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns) in partnership with Mr. Waxman and with Mr. Barton.

Mr. Boucher and I have been working on these issues for many, many, many years, and this bill that has been produced by his subcommittee is something that, in my opinion, is going to go a long way towards helping our country to create a new boom economically in this wireless sector. We saw a great boom in the 1990s when we moved over 200 megahertz of spectrum, creating the third, fourth, fifth and sixth cell phone license, combined with the Telecom Act of 1996. We saw, actually, a transformation in the way in which we communicate in our country.

Who would think that we could move from black rotary dial phones to BlackBerrys in just 10 years, almost on a ubiquitous basis.

Who would think that Mr. Stearns could be checking his BlackBerry even as I'm speaking out here on the floor? That's something we're very proud of. We're very proud of that revolution in the 1990s. And I think we have the potential here in this legislation to accomplish the very same kind of addition to the spectrum capacity. And Ms. BLACKBURN is showing not only can we use these devices now for voice but also for video and for data.

It's become a technology with the great deal of flexibility; yet because of this technology, we are going to be able--and I thank the chairman for this--to inventory each radio spectrum band of frequencies from 225 megahertz to 10 gigahertz, and that includes the radio services authorized to operate within each band of frequencies, the identity of each Federal or non-Federal user within which such radio service is authorized to operate in each band of the frequencies, the total amount of spectrum by band of frequencies allocated to each Federal or non-Federal user and an approximation of the extent to which each Federal or non-Federal user is using each band of frequencies.

This basic goal that the legislation advances to create this inventory will make it possible for us to build on this revolution that occurred from the mid-1990s to 2005 where companies whose names did not exist--Google, eBay, Amazon, Hulu, YouTube--are now replaced or added to with a whole new generation of companies, of technologies, of gadgets and applications that will give incredible economic stimulus to our country.

So what we have here is a debate over the American economy, and it's central to our wellbeing; yet in a lot of ways, it just doesn't get talked about as being the biggest part of what happened in the 1990s. And as it moves into the 21st century, we're seeing these technologies now be included in new energy technologies, new health care technologies, new education technologies. It now has infiltrated technology after technology in our country.

And what the gentleman from Virginia is doing in a bipartisan partnership with the gentleman from Florida is, in my opinion, central to ensuring that we have the leadership in this mobile innovation, that we have a smart spectrum policy that is put on the books, and then we can just get out of the way and watch these entrepreneurs and watch these whole tech communities make it possible for us, with a little bit of luck from Mr. Stearns and others, that the applications become so great that perhaps he and millions of other Americans will never again have to look up from their BlackBerry. There will just be so much interesting stuff that is on it, it will be so versatile.

So thank you so much and congratulations. I urge an ``aye'' vote on this important legislation.

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