Texas Lawmakers Ignoring Amateur Radio Concerns in BPL Bill,
ARRL SM Says
NEWINGTON, CT, Apr 26, 2005--A bill
in the Texas Senate aimed at amending that state's utilities code to "encourage
the deployment of BPL" by electric utilities has received unanimous approval
from the Senate Business and Commerce Committee. Sen Troy Fraser, the sponsor
of the measure--S.B. 1748--also chairs the panel. After holding a hearing April
21 and reporting the bill out of committee, the panel also voted to put it on
the "consent agenda" to expedite its passage in the Texas Senate. ARRL North
Texas Section Manager Tom Blackwell, N5GAR, says the BPL bill was added to the
committee's hearing agenda at the last minute "so we would have the minimum
amount of time to submit input." At the hearing itself, "everything was well
scripted in advance," he said, and radio amateurs' concerns about the measure
have fallen on deaf ears.
"Those who opposed this and made phone calls, sent letters
or e-mail or who made personal visits to the staff members or senators
themselves were summarily ignored," Blackwell said. He suggests that his
constituents would make better use of their time at this point by contacting
members of the Texas House.
"I know there are amateurs who want their views considered
on this bill," Blackwell said. "Amateurs deserve respectful treatment and
consideration from these elected officials who will decide the outcome of these
issues."
The committee originally had set April 5 as the hearing
date for S.B. 1748, and one radio amateur showed up prepared to testify and
signed a witness affidavit. Fraser then announced that the committee would not
be accepting testimony on the bill that day, and the hearing subsequently was
rescheduled.
As drafted, the bill establishes a state regulatory
framework for electric utilities, municipally owned utilities and electric
cooperatives to develop and deploy BPL systems in Texas. It would allow
utilities to lease their power lines to other concerns to operate BPL systems. The
measure also would authorize a utility, should it chose to do so, to recover
its BPL investment from ratepayers. A utility offering BPL would only have to consider
40 percent of its BPL revenues as income in rate proceedings.
Fraser asserts that his measure, introduced March 11, will
prove "especially important to rural Texas, where high-speed Internet service
is not readily available." But he conceded in a statement issued after the bill's
favorable committee report that BPL "is still in the early stages of
development." His bill also makes BPL secondary to the delivery of electric
power and requires that BPL not affect the reliability of power delivery.
An Irving, Texas, BPL pilot project that was the target of
an ARRL complaint
shut down in March and removed its equipment. The ARRL's March 15 filing to the
FCC's Enforcement Bureau, its Office of Engineering and Technology, system
operator TXU and equipment manufacturer Amperion supported an Amateur Radio
complaint. The League has since withdrawn its complaint. There's been no word
from TXU as to why it shut down the system and removed its equipment.
Page last modified: 08:11 AM, 26 Apr 2005 ET
Page author: awextra@arrl.org
Copyright © 2005, American Radio Relay League, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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