Majority Statement

• Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV
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  Majority Statement

  Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV

  Welcome to the 10^th Executive Session the Commerce Committee has held in the 113^th Congress.   

  There are a number of important bills on our agenda today. As is usual for this Committee, the bills we are considering are the result of hundreds of hours of hard work and negotiations between Members and staff on both sides of this dais.   

  I would especially like to thank Senator Thune and his staff for working so collaboratively with me on several of the items we will consider today. 

  One of the bills we worked on together is legislation to reauthorize the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA). This bill (S. 2338) will allow the agency responsible for managing the anti-doping program for our Olympic and Paralympic athletes to continue its work. USADA contributes to clean sports in America through scientific research and education, as well as athlete testing.

  We will also be marking up a bill (S. 2777) that makes important procedural reforms to the Surface Transportation Board (STB). As we were reminded in a hearing that Senator Thune and I called in this Committee last week, businesses that depend on freight rail transportation to get their products to market are still suffering unacceptable delays.   

  The goal of this bill is to give shippers easier access to the STB when the freight railroads fail to deliver reliable and affordable transportation service. While the freight railroads talk a big game about how they are building out their networks to better serve their customers, I still think they have a long way to go.

  I am also very proud of the bill Senator Thune and I have written to reauthorize the expiring Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act (STELA). The name of our new legislation is the “Satellite Television Access and Viewer Rights Act” or STAVRA (S. 2799). We developed this bill through a nearly year-long process that sought input from a wide range of stakeholders.

  Our bill makes sure that 1.5 million Americans do not lose access to broadcast television programming on their satellite pay TV service at the end of this year. It also makes several targeted, pro-consumer reforms to existing video policy. For example, the bill allows the FCC to make consumer-focused changes to satellite television markets, just as it already can for cable. This is an issue on which Senator Pryor has been particularly engaged and I appreciate his efforts.  

  It’s no secret that I think our video marketplace needs an overhaul. The current marketplace works fine for broadcasters and pay television providers, but it doesn’t work so well for the rest of us. Consumers deserve more choices and lower bills. We should be able to pay only for the channels we actually want to watch.     

  Senator Thune and I have made a proposal that would start pushing the video marketplace in a more consumer-friendly direction. We call it “Local Choice.” I am disappointed that it is not part of the legislation we are considering today, but it has started a very important conversation. I am absolutely certain that this conversation is going to continue in this Committee and elsewhere, because consumers are demanding change.

  Even though this bill does not include our Local Choice proposal, it makes positive changes for consumers and it reauthorizes several key provisions that are set to expire in a few months. I hope we can move it out of the Committee today with broad bipartisan support. 

  I will defer to Senators Begich, Schatz and Markey to discuss the details of the three pieces of legislation we will move to implement the Convention on Conservation and Management of the High Seas Fisheries in the North and South Pacific, and North Atlantic. But I will observe that fisheries management is extremely important to our marine economy and jobs – and a largely unheralded part of the work of this Committee, as Senators Nelson, Cantwell, Wicker and others understand. I sincerely appreciate the work that has gone into implementing the legislation of these standing conventions.  

  Two other important pieces of legislation we will consider are:

  • Senator Nelson’s bill to improve the safety of liquid nicotine containers. This bill addresses a safety problem we learned about in our June hearing on e-cigarettes – young children are being poisoned by their parents’ e-cigarette nicotine refills.   This is a common-sense proposal that will save lives; and

  • A bill that Senator Fischer and I co-authored to allow manufacturers to use “electronic labels” to show that their devices are compliant with FCC radiofrequency standards. This proposal takes advantage of new technology to lower productions costs. I thank Senator Fischer for her good work on this issue.

  Finally, we will be considering two nominations:

  • The nomination of Christopher Hart to be the Chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), our country’s premier transportation safety agency; and

  • The nomination of retired Coast Guard Admiral Manson K. Brown to oversee the crucial weather programs at the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA).   

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