Congress Bargainers Block New FCC Rules

By ALAN FRAM
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Lawmakers negotiating a vast end-of-session spending bill are defying the Bush administration over television station ownership limits, but remain gridlocked over whether to challenge the White House over overtime pay rules.

With little fanfare, House-Senate bargainers decided Wednesday to include a provision that would block the Federal Communications Commission from allowing companies to own stations watched by 45 percent of viewers. That would leave the current limit of 35 percent in effect.

The decision was no surprise, since the House and a Senate committee had voted in recent weeks to do just that. Still, it meant that the Republicans who run Congress were calculating that President Bush would not make good on a White House threat to veto the legislation if it blocked the ruling the FCC made in June.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, a supporter of the current, narrower ownership limits, told reporters he expected "a verbal spanking" from the White House, but not a veto.

Spokesman J.T. Young of the White House budget office declined to comment on the lawmakers' action. In recent days, administration officials had stood by the veto threat.

At stake is a massive spending measure exceeding $280 billion - an eighth of the entire federal budget - financing dozens of agencies for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. GOP leaders want Congress to finish the bill before Thanksgiving, along with Medicare and energy legislation, so lawmakers can adjourn for the year.

Once bargainers finish writing the bill, it will have to be approved by the House and Senate and receive Bush's signature.

One of the most contentious remaining issues is a Senate-approved provision blocking the Bush administration from changing how employers decide which workers qualify for overtime pay. Most Democrats also want to kill the administration proposal.

Critics say the plan would jeopardize overtime for more than 8 million employees. The administration says the proposal is a badly needed modernization of rules so vague that they have spawned a flood of lawsuits.

Complicating the matter is opposition to the new rule by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., who has a tough re-election race next year in a state where labor is strong.

"Stalemate, deadlock," he told a reporter regarding talks he has held with Labor Secretary Elaine Chao and other administration officials in search of a compromise.

Another problem facing bargainers is a proposal by Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Mo., to prevent California from imposing tight air pollution controls on lawn mowers and other small engines.

California officials fear the state will be penalized for high pollution levels by losing federal highway dollars. The state is pitted against the Briggs & Stratton Corp., the country's leading maker of small engines, which has facilities in Missouri.

Negotiators dropped language Bond pushed through the Senate blocking the California rules. But he prepared another proposal that would delay California's new requirements until the federal regulators consider their national impact on costs, fire safety and other factors.

Also complicating work on the bill is House-approved language barring the issuance of patents on humans. Opponents say the provision would halt stem cell research, but supporters deny that and say it would merely codify U.S. Patent Office rules.

The television ownership language represented a setback for the large broadcast networks, which say they must grow to compete with cable and satellite networks, the Internet and other new technologies.

Hardest hit would be Viacom Inc., which owns CBS and UPN, and News Corp., owner of Fox, which due to mergers and acquisitions already exceed the 35 percent limit.

The language is a victory for local station owners and a rainbow of groups ranging from the Christian Coalition to Consumers Union, which said the proposed rule would limit access to the airwaves.

The Republican-dominated FCC voted June 2 by a party-line 3-2 to expand the number of stations companies may own. The House and a Senate committee, however, had both voted to block that plan.

The FCC also voted in June to make it easier for companies to own newspapers and broadcast stations in the same community. That ruling would not be affected by the emerging legislation.