Joe Barton: “Congressman Murphy, current law allows local authorities to assess a franchise fee of up to 5 percent of a cable…”

“Congressman Murphy, current law allows local authorities to assess a franchise fee of up to 5 percent of a cable operator's gross revenue for the use of the public right-of-way for cable service. The Act before us would allow the localities to assess the exact same fee on holders of a national franchise. In other words, localities may continue to collect the same rent for the use of the rights-of-way for cable service. The Act before us also preserves the locality's physical management of their right-of-way. Section 630(f) explicitly states that nothing in the Act affects the authority of the localities to manage their rights-of-way on a competitively neutral, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory basis.”