House To Mark Up Communications Bills

Rep. Frank Pallone
House Energy & Commerce Committee chair Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) (Image credit: U.S. Congress)

The House Energy & Commerce Committee plans to mark up two communications and technology bills this week.

Those would be H.R. 1281, the Data Mapping to Save Moms Act, and H.R. 2501, the Spectrum Coordination Act.

House E&C chairman Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) and Communications Subcommittee chairman Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) said Monday (Nov. 1) that the committee will mark up the bills — that is, consider amendments and potentially vote them out of committee — on Nov. 3.

The bipartisan Data Mapping Act “will use data mapping to identify areas of the country where poor maternal health rates overlap with a lack of broadband access in order to deploy telehealth services most effectively,” according to co-sponsor Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.). Other co-sponsors are Reps. G. K. Butterfield (D-N.C.) and Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.).

The Spectrum Coordination Act, also from Bilirakis, “requires the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and the Federal Communications Commission to update the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Spectrum Coordination to (1) improve the process for resolving frequency allocation disputes in shared or adjacent spectrum bands, and (2) ensure the efficient use or sharing of spectrum.”

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.