A U.S. Senate panel approved auctioning television airwaves and using the proceeds to build a radio network to avert the communications breakdowns that plagued emergency workers during the terrorist attacks of 2001.
The bill to establish auctions of airwaves relinquished by television stations cleared the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday on a 21-4 vote. The bill, S. 911, still needs approval from the full Senate, and action in the House.
“This bill will help prevent the kind of communications failure that occurred during rescue efforts at ground zero on 9/11,” Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat who chairs the committee, said before the vote. “On that horrible September day, first responders perished because they could not communicate with each other.”
Under the bill, the U.S. would auction airwaves voluntarily surrendered by TV station owners. Stations that give up airwaves may continue broadcasting or shut down, as the owners choose.
The auctions would raise $28 billion, the Obama administration estimated in February.
Auctions envisioned by Wednesday’s bill could pay TV station owners, pay for the emergency workers’ network and raise about $10 billion toward reducing the U.S. deficit, said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Texas Republican who supported the measure.
