John Ensign: “very briefly, I rise in strong support of what Senator McCain is trying to do. This underlying bill is acting on a lot…”

“very briefly, I rise in strong support of what Senator McCain is trying to do. This underlying bill is acting on a lot of the proposals the 9/11 Commission has brought forward. It has recognized some serious problems we face in this global war on terrorism and has asked Congress to address those--at least some of those problems--in this bill. Senator McCain has tried with this amendment to address some more of those problems. Frankly, we do have a problem with first responders. They do not have the spectrum they need to be able to communicate properly during disasters. We have seen that a few times in the past. The 9/11 Commission has strongly recommended we take the kind of action Senator McCain is trying to take today and free up the spectrum from the broadcasters, the spectrum they have agreed to give up next year-- frankly, the hard deadline Senator McCain has put forward is actually years out from that--and the broadcasters are now saying they cannot do that. It would be too expensive for them and cause all kinds of problems. The broadcasters have had this spectrum for free for a long time. In the agreement--forgetting the digital spectrum--they were supposed to get off of the analog spectrum, which is part of the spectrum we want to give to some public safety groups for better communication. This is not just a question of radios being able to work.…”