WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, and ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, released the following statement today at the beginning of the committee’s markup of H.R. 2994, the Satellite Home Viewer Reauthorization Act; H.R. 1147, the Doyle-Terry Local Community Radio Act of 2009; H.R. 3633, the Public Safety Interoperable Communications Grant Program Extension Act of 2009; and H.R. 3792, the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of 2009.

“I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, and other members of the majority for working with us to reach consensus on these bills. 

“The first bill is the Satellite Home Viewer Reauthorization Act, which is very timely in light of the highly successful and nearly seamless DTV transition that just occurred.

“The current law lets satellite operators provide distant broadcast signals to subscribers who can’t get local signals over the air. That authority, as you know, expires Dec. 31, 2009. The bill before us would extend it five years. It would also requires the FCC to update how it determines if a subscriber can get an adequate signal over the air. Today’s rules are based on analog signal strength, which is zero in a world without analog broadcasting.

“The satellite television provisions are among the most complex that we deal with in telecommunications law, and I am pleased that members and staff on both sides were able to work in a bipartisan way to reauthorize this piece of legislation.

“We are also scheduled to consider H.R. 1147, the Local Community Radio Act, which was introduced by Mr. Terry and Mr. Doyle. That bill was passed unanimously by voice vote last week. It would repeal statutory limits on how close low-power FM radio stations may operate to full-power stations based on an FCC recommendation that there would not be substantial interference.

“Last week, the subcommittee also unanimously passed H.R. 3633, the Public Safety Interoperable Communications Grant Program Extension Act of 2009. The PSIC program is supposed to ensure our nation’s first responders have state-of-the-art communications equipment to effectively communicate with each other in times of disaster. Without an extension, this effort will fall short because many states will be left with incomplete and partially funded projects. Congresswoman Harman on the majority side and Congressman Cao, who is not a member of this committee on the minority are the primary co-sponsors of this legislation.

“Finally, we are also reporting out of full committee the reauthorization of the Ryan White Care Act, which I’m a proud co-sponsor of, and which we just reported out of subcommittee yesterday afternoon on a bipartisan basis.
 
“I am not going to repeat all my remarks about the Ryan White bill since we did that at subcommittee yesterday. Suffice it to say that the program is important for providing care to people affected by HIV and AIDS, and this reauthorization makes several improvements related to case reporting, hold-harmless provisions with fair modifications, flexibility to grantees in using funding, realistic testing goals, and communications with emergency responders. I want to thank Congressman Pallone on the majority and Congressman Deal and Congresswoman Bono on the minority for working to make this bill bipartisan and hope this bill can clear both Houses as quickly as possible.

“With that, Mr. Chairman, we look forward to the markup. I yield back.”