{"id":6963,"date":"2020-01-13T17:10:14","date_gmt":"2020-01-13T21:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.mml.org\/wp\/inside208\/?p=6963"},"modified":"2020-01-13T17:10:14","modified_gmt":"2020-01-13T21:10:14","slug":"federal-news-senator-markey-to-introduce-legislation-on-cable-franchise-fees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/2020\/01\/13\/federal-news-senator-markey-to-introduce-legislation-on-cable-franchise-fees\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal News: Senator Markey and Representative Eshoo to Introduce Legislation On Cable Franchise Fees"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Good news from the federal level. Senator Markey (Massachusetts) intends to introduce legislation in the Senate and Representative Anna Eshoo (California) intends to be the House champion for a bill that would clarify the definition of franchise fees as <em>monetary<\/em>, so that in-kind franchise contributions are protected from the 2019 FCC order. The text of the bill is extremely brief:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Title:<\/strong> <strong>Protecting Community Television Act t<\/strong>o amend the Communications Act of 1934 to modify the definition of franchise fee, and for other purposes.<\/li>\n<li>Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. MODIFYING THE DEFINITION OF FRANCHISE FEE. Section 622(g)(1) of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 542(g)(1)) is amended by inserting &#8220;other monetary&#8221; before &#8220;assessment&#8221;.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>They intend to introduce the bill late this week and are looking for endorsements from local elected officials and organizations. The National League of Cities will be endorsing this bill and we will be working with them to push this legislation. We ask that you please reach out to Senator Peters and Senator Stabenow, or Representative, and encourage them to support this legislation. We also ask that you share your support with Bennett Butler in Senator Markey&#8217;s office at <a href=\"mailto:Bennett_Butler@markey.senate.gov\">Bennett_Butler@markey.senate.gov<\/a> or Asad Ramzanali, <a href=\"mailto:Asad.Ramzanali@mail.house.gov\">Asad.Ramzanali@mail.house.gov<\/a> with Representative Eshoo&#8217;s office.<\/p>\n<p>We understand that this has been a pressing issue for our communities. Preserving and protecting our rights-of-way is a top priority for the League and we will continue to offer our support for this legislation and directly advocate for its passage when we attend the NLC Congressional Cities Conference in DC in March.<\/p>\n<p><em>John LaMacchia is the Assistant Director of State and Federal Affairs for the League handling transportation, infrastructure, energy and environment issues. He can be reached at jlamacchia@mml.org or 517-908-0303.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Good news from the federal level. Senator Markey (Massachusetts) intends to introduce legislation in the Senate and Representative Anna Eshoo (California) intends to be the House champion for a bill that would clarify the definition of franchise fees as monetary, so that in-kind franchise contributions are protected from the 2019  [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","mml-onemagnify-plugin"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Federal News: Senator Markey and Representative Eshoo to Introduce Legislation On Cable Franchise Fees - Inside 208<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/2020\/01\/13\/federal-news-senator-markey-to-introduce-legislation-on-cable-franchise-fees\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Federal News: Senator Markey and Representative Eshoo to Introduce Legislation On Cable Franchise Fees - Inside 208\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Good news from the federal level. Senator Markey (Massachusetts) intends to introduce legislation in the Senate and Representative Anna Eshoo (California) intends to be the House champion for a bill that would clarify the definition of franchise fees as monetary, so that in-kind franchise contributions are protected from the 2019 [...]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/2020\/01\/13\/federal-news-senator-markey-to-introduce-legislation-on-cable-franchise-fees\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Inside 208\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/facebook.com\/MMLeague\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-01-13T21:10:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2025\/10\/Inside-208-Site-Image.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"675\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dene Westbrook\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@MMLeague\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@MMLeague\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dene Westbrook\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/2020\/01\/13\/federal-news-senator-markey-to-introduce-legislation-on-cable-franchise-fees\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/2020\/01\/13\/federal-news-senator-markey-to-introduce-legislation-on-cable-franchise-fees\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Dene Westbrook\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/#\/schema\/person\/15aed4510ea6fe39f324094edb06c88c\"},\"headline\":\"Federal News: Senator Markey and Representative Eshoo to Introduce Legislation On Cable Franchise Fees\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-01-13T21:10:14+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/2020\/01\/13\/federal-news-senator-markey-to-introduce-legislation-on-cable-franchise-fees\/\"},\"wordCount\":323,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/#organization\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/2020\/01\/13\/federal-news-senator-markey-to-introduce-legislation-on-cable-franchise-fees\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/2020\/01\/13\/federal-news-senator-markey-to-introduce-legislation-on-cable-franchise-fees\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/2020\/01\/13\/federal-news-senator-markey-to-introduce-legislation-on-cable-franchise-fees\/\",\"name\":\"Federal News: Senator Markey and Representative Eshoo to Introduce Legislation On Cable Franchise Fees - 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