A powerful U.S. senator hinted that the comprehensive telecommunications bill that passed in committee may be in jeopardy because supporters of the bill may not have enough votes to get the bill passed this year.

The concern is that when the Senate reconvenes in 2007, the Democrats would have most likely made some gains, and the current bill, which does not address Net neutrality, will most certainly perish.

The admission by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, a strong supporter of the current bill, changes the political landscape on Capitol Hill to some extent.

The Internet is the new lobbying force in Washington, D.C. Despite losing all of the battles for network neutrality safeguards in both the Senate and House of Representatives, the Net neutrality forces, assembled primarily on the web, seem to have won the war, for now.

Bill on Hold

The Communications, Consumers’ Choice and Broadband Deployment Act looks to be on the verge of extinction.

Supporters of the bill will need 60 votes in the full Senate to defeat a “hold” placed on the bill by Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), a Net neutrality supporter. The hold, a rarely used parliamentary measure, will allow Net neutrality supporters to filibuster the bill to death (see Senator Blocks Telecom Bill).

But Senator Stevens sees a ray of hope.

“I do hope that all the work we’ve done on this communications bill will not go away just because of the end of this Congress,” he said in an address to the Progress and Freedom Foundation, an educational group, on Thursday. “It is still possible to get it passed, and I’m working as hard as I can to see that that happens.”

But it is unlikely that Senator Stevens will be able to guarantee the 60 votes that Republican leaders will require to bring the bill up for debate before the full Senate. Senator Stevens admitted to reporters after his address that he may not have the 60 votes.

Coalition Victory

The bill is the first piece of comprehensive telecommunications legislation in a decade. It covers a wide range of telecommunications and regulatory issues such as video franchising, universal service, and municipal broadband.

Still, passage of the bill hinges on Net neutrality, a concept not well understood in both the general U.S. population and the Senate.

A coalition of organizations and individuals led by MoveOn.org, the Free Press, Consumers Union, Gun Owners of America, Google, and Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.org, moved the Net neutrality discussion into the mainstream with a relentless Internet-based lobbying effort.

In both the Senate and House committees, Net neutrality dominated the sometimes disjointed debate. Despite the fact that bills passed in both houses that did not include Net neutrality provisions, the SaveTheInternet.com coalition seems to be on the brink of victory.

Contact the writer:CMedford@RedHerring.com

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