Panel Aids Effort to Block FCC

A House committee moved Wednesday to block media giants from owning television stations that reach more than 35% of the nation’s viewers, boosting efforts to reverse the Federal Communications Commission’s loosening of media ownership rules.

In a 40-25 vote, the House Appropriations Committee amended a spending bill that is expected to pass, attaching language that would prohibit the FCC from using its money to implement changes to the national ownership cap.

The move came weeks after the FCC’s June 2 vote to increase the cap to 45%. The commission at the same time relaxed a number of similar limits, spurring a bipartisan revolt among lawmakers who are worried about giving too much power to media conglomerates such as Viacom Inc. and News Corp.

Lawmakers also are concerned that increasing the cap may alienate the owners of smaller, independently owned television stations that provide crucial local campaign coverage for politicians. And they fear antagonizing a wide range of special interest groups -- including the National Organization for Women and the National Rifle Assn. -- that have opposed increasing the cap.

In the Senate, a bipartisan coalition is pushing a far more comprehensive bill that would repeal additional elements of the FCC decision, for instance by reinstating a ban on simultaneous ownership of both a TV station and a newspaper in a single city. Tribune Co., which owns both The Times and KTLA-TV Channel 5 in Los Angeles, lobbied for rule changes that would permit such combinations.

At the same time, Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) is seeking to block the FCC’s new rules via the rarely used power of congressional veto. On Tuesday, he said he had collected signatures from more than one-third of Senate members in support of a petition to bring the issue to a vote as early as this month.

Wednesday’s committee vote will make it more difficult for House Republican leaders, several of whom support the FCC’s changes, to derail efforts to reverse them.

Rep. W.J. “Billy” Tauzin (R-La.), who had vowed to fight attempts to roll back the rules, said Wednesday that he would move to strip the amendment out of the $37-billion appropriations bill, which earmarks funds for the departments of State, Commerce and Justice. Tauzin also said he expected the White House to oppose the amendment.

“The fight’s not over yet,” said Ken Johnson, Tauzin’s spokesman. “This vote limits our options but does not eliminate them.”

Johnson described Wednesday’s vote as being “more about settling old scores than anything else.”

Some lawmakers, he said, were “upset about violence on TV, liquor advertising and even Rush Limbaugh. Today they took out their frustrations.”

But analysts said the vote would add momentum to the broader Senate effort, improving chances that Congress may overturn the FCC’s media ownership rules.

“A lot of people thought that the House was going to provide a dam against any congressional action to reverse the FCC,” said Blair Levin, analyst at Legg Mason in Washington. “But they essentially did an end run around Tauzin. Now there are lots and lots of balls in the air. There is a significant chance that Congress will roll back at least part of the decision.”

Critics of the FCC’s loosening of the media rules said the House Appropriations Committee vote gave them the upper hand in lobbying Congress.

“The train seems to be moving much faster than people thought it would,” said FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, a Democrat who voted against the rule changes.

He and fellow Democratic Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein are calling on FCC Chairman Michael K. Powell to temporarily block the rule changes from taking effect pending the outcome of the debate in Congress.

A spokesman for Powell, who championed the deregulation, declined to comment. Powell and his fellow Republicans have resisted calls to delay implementation of the new rules.