Keep things easy, simple for auction

Promoting innovation, fostering an environment for job creation and reducing the nation’s debt are goals we work to achieve every day. Sometimes we’re even able to do all of those things with one piece of legislation. The spectrum incentive auctions included in the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 was one of those unique opportunities.

This bipartisan effort authorized first-of-its-kind auctions in which the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is charged with facilitating transactions between broadcasters that are willing to part with broadcast spectrum licenses and the wireless providers that desperately need more spectrum to meet America’s wireless broadband demand.

Achieving bipartisan consensus is never easy, and the creation of the incentive auction legislation was no exception. Working together, both Republican and Democratic members put aside their personal visions of what the market for licenses should look like and developed legislation that lets the market do what it does best — make rational economic decisions.

{mosads}Now the FCC faces this same challenge. The United States has been a world leader in spectrum use. The first auctions for spectrum licenses occurred here; the transition from analog broadcasting to digital broadcasting was pioneered here; and now the world watches to see how the United States will tackle the challenge of bringing broadcasters and wireless providers together in a voluntary incentive auction.

Having helped draft the authorizing legislation, I have one small piece of advice for the commission as it works toward a successful auction: be humble.

Be humble enough to recognize that if we on Capitol Hill put aside our strong opinions on how to shape this market in our personal visions, you too should be able to recognize the power of the market for spectrum to make good economic decisions.

Be humble enough to recognize that you cannot possibly know the true value of the broadcast stations and wireless licenses in the auction, and that for some, the value cannot be measured in dollars alone.

Be humble enough to reject the urge to tinker. Many will tell you that if you just “tweak this” or “restrict that” you can manufacture a “better” outcome. You can’t know all the variables. Keeping things as simple as possible and avoiding unnecessary complexity should be the goal. Anyone who tells you he or she can predict the outcome of the auction to a certainty should also heed this call for humility.

America has a great opportunity before it: to take our legacy of command and control of spectrum licensing and turn it on its head through the power of market economics. We can give new life to spectrum that has been locked up by decades of old FCC rules, to say nothing of the billions of dollars we can generate to fund FirstNet and to pay down our nation’s debt. With a lot of hard work and a little humility, the commission can again show the world why the United States is the world leader in forward-thinking spectrum policy.

Walden has represented Oregon’s 2nd Congressional District since 1999. He sits on the Energy and Commerce Committee and is chairman of that panel’s subcommittee on communications and technology.