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Sue Nord, Sr. Director Government Affairs 713 345-4196 ----- Forwarded by Sue Nord/NA/Enron on 04/21/2001 04:22 PM ----- Allison Navin 04/20/2001 03:57 PM To: Lara Leibman/NA/Enron@ENRON, Sue Nord/NA/Enron@Enron, Stephen D Burns/Corp/Enron@Enron, Mona L Petrochko/NA/Enron@ENRON, Scott Bolton/Enron Communications@Enron Communications cc: Linda Robertson/NA/Enron@ENRON Subject: RBOC Sec. 271 Legislative Update We have some additional information on this as well that we just got wind of this afternoon. The Interlata relief bill that will be introduced on Monday or Tuesday by Congressmen Tauzin and Dingell will be nearly identical to last year's bill, H.R. 2420. Tauzin will hold a full committee hearing on the bill next Wednesday with invited witnesses to include Verizon, Covad, Highway One (a DSL carrier in NY) and McLeod. We aren't aware of any administration types being invited, i.e. Powell or someone from NTIA. A subcommittee markup will likely be scheduled for the following week, with the full committee mark-up to occur sometime before Memorial Day, depending on what is happening in the Committee with regards to the California situation. On the Senate side, we are hearing that Senator Sam Brownback will reintroduce his RBOC legislation from last year which is more of a RBOC friendly bill than Tauzin's in that RBOCs would no longer be subject to Federal requirements concerning facilities and equipment carriage of advanced communications services. We understand that Brownback intends to introduce his legislation sometime before Memorial Day but that he is actively seeking a Democratic co-sponsor, something that he was not able to do last Congress either. Opponents of the bill are working the Senate side to ensure he does not find an ally. We understand that Tauzin has kept in close contact with his fellow Louisianan Senator John Breaux on the goings-on in the House and that Breaux may be willing to help move things along in the Senate, however as Scott stated previously, Senator McCain, as we know, is likely not to take an active position on the legislation. Senators Hollings (Ranking Member of the Commerce Committee), Senator Stevens and Senator Lott are all said to be against moving forward with any form of 271 relief. Despite all of the Senate activity, the bottom line is that Scott's assessment is accurate - we don't see anything moving out of the Senate this year. Allison Scott Bolton@ENRON COMMUNICATIONS 04/20/2001 02:56 PM To: Lara Leibman/NA/Enron@ENRON, Sue Nord/NA/Enron@Enron, Stephen D Burns/Corp/Enron@Enron, Mona L Petrochko/NA/Enron@ENRON cc: Subject: RBOC Sec. 271 Legislative Update Federal Sec. 271 Relief Legislation: Rep. Billy Tauzin, Chairman of the House Commerce Committee, is expected to introduce legislation on 4/23 to enable ILECs to provide interLATA data services without opening their local networks to competitors. The bill would allow the Bells to transmit data across local market boundaries and also allow the RBOCs to deploy high-capacity facilities without having to lease or resell them as UNEs. Rep. John Dingell, the Commerce Committee ranking member will be a co-sponser. This bill last Congress had over 200 co-sponsors and made it to committee mark-up, but was stifled by then-Commerce Chairman Tom Bliley and supporters of AT&T. This year, Tauzin is expected to push it through his committee vigorously and it may come to the House floor for a vote. However, the Senate seems unlikely to take this up in a serious way this year due to Sen. McCain's reluctance to follow Rep. Tauzin's agenda and Sen. Hollings' solid support of AT&T. We expect this legislation to create a lot of noise this year, but not move through the Senate until next year if at all.
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