Texas BPL Bill Now in Hands of House Committee
NEWINGTON, CT, May 5, 2005--The fate of a bill aimed at amending the Texas utilities code to "encourage the deployment of BPL" by electric utilities now rests with members of the Texas House of Representatives Regulated Utilities Committee. The measure, SB 1748, sailed through the Texas Senate following an April 21 hearing announced on short notice. The bill's sponsor, Sen Troy Fraser, told the Dallas Morning News April 29 after the measure cleared the Senate that utility officials have assured Texas lawmakers that BPL won't interfere with other services. North Texas ARRL Section Manager Tom Blackwell, N5GAR, says he and a representative of the West Texas Section visited for about two hours April 29 with senior staffers in the office of the Speaker of the House. They also met with most members of the Regulated Industries Committee, which could hold a hearing on the bill as early as May 10.
"We delivered petitions signed by amateurs to legislators in several other House districts," Blackwell said. "We are putting our best foot forward with facts about this bill." Blackwell says he's been promised "courteous treatment" by the House committee, something he says was absent on the Senate side, where he contends that radio amateurs' views were "summarily ignored."
"With this bill, amateurs are learning things about the way they have been represented in the Texas Legislature that they did not know before," he said. Blackwell has posted more information on his "Comments on the New Texas BPL Bill" Web site, which includes contact information for lawmakers.
Blackwell says he remains unimpressed by new language added to SB 1748 while it was still in the Senate Business and Commerce Committee, which Fraser chairs.
"After we complained to members of the Senate committee, an amendment was added that says BPL systems must comply with 'applicable federal laws,'" Blackwell notes. While the additional wording was intended to assuage the Amateur Radio community, he says, "it offers no additional relief because BPL investors would have to comply with these federal regulations anyway."
West Texas SM John Dyer, AE5B, took a different view in a BPL reflector posting, calling the new language "a significant victory" that followed "low-key background sessions" between hams and various staff members of Fraser's Senate committee.
The additional language says, "BPL operators are required to comply with all applicable federal laws, including laws protecting licensed spectrum users from interference by BPL systems."
Blackwell maintains that radio amateurs are doing BPL interests a favor by opposing the bill and "keeping them out of risky and uncertain investments that are based on a technology that is apparently faulty, uncertain and misrepresented."
SB 1748 would allow electric utilities to lease out their power lines to other businesses to operate BPL systems or services. Fraser asserts that his measure, introduced March 11, will be "great for Texas" and "especially important to rural Texas, where high-speed Internet service is not readily available." But he concedes that BPL "is still in the early stages of development."
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. TXU, which has indicated it's still interested in BPL, did not indicate why it shut down the system and removed its equipment.
Page last modified: 01:07 PM, 05 May 2005 ET
Page author: awextra@arrl.org
Copyright © 2005, American Radio Relay League, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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