FCC’s Starks: C-Band vote against taxpayer interests
March 10, 2020
By Colin Mann
FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks has reaffirmed his opposition to the Commission’s planned auction of C-Band spectrum.
In a written statement submitted prior to his appearance before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government, he suggested that February’s vote on the C-Band put the interests of foreign satellite companies ahead of taxpayers. “Everyone now appears to agree with the position that [Subcommittee] Chairman Kennedy and I championed last year: any transfer of this spectrum should be done via a public auction and not in a private transaction conducted by the companies with the most to gain,” he asserted.
“I fundamentally disagree with the Chairman’s approach on the C-Band, which is why I voted against the nearly $15 billion proposal that stretches our law too far and unjustly enriches foreign satellite operators who may not even keep their end of this bad bargain. I fervently hope that Congress will pass legislation like the SMART Act, which will clarify our authority and ensure that most auction proceeds stay in the United States and are spent meeting vital needs like rural broadband deployment and next-generation 911,” he concluded.