Good Evening - As of 5 pm this evening nearly 25,000 new emails were generated by yesterday’s mailing to the membership. Tom Frenaye raised a question regarding S.253 and the lack of knowledge of this particular bill amongst the Board and the membership. I thought I’d bring this to the Board as there may be others who are also confused. I informed the Board on October 3rd as to the fact that S.253 was a new omnibus package which included H.R. 1301 in its entirety. As I mentioned, the bill now has two paths it could take to get to passage, assuming any business gets done in the lame duck session (given how much more nasty the politics have become over the past month). Why a complete explanation of S.253 was not made to the general membership is simply this; the route is very confusing and when you research the bill it looks like it has already passed the Senate when it has not. The original S.253,which was a different act with different cosponsors, was passed in the Senate and sent to the House for consideration. The House Commerce Committee stripped out the Senate bill, completely amended it, passed it, and sent it back to the Senate for their consideration. If you go to Congress.gov and search for S.253 you’ll find that it passed both Houses and is awaiting Presidential approval. Of course, nothing can be further from the real status of the bill. Since H.R. 1301 is still the path the bill is actively taking, it makes more sense to deal with that. This is not an elitist viewpoint, simply a pragmatic one. The reason the Senate nomenclature is mentioned in the new email is simply because it is addressed to the Senate and they can choose either path. I hope this is a satisfactory answer to the question. Feel free to contact me with any questions. 73 de Mike N2YBB P.S. – Besides Tom’s question on this topic, I am not aware of any other inquiries about the two different titles. Please let me know if you have. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Mike Lisenco, N2YBB Director, Hudson Division Chairman, ad hoc Legislative Advocacy Committee ARRL - The national association for Amateur Radio™ 917-865-3538 n2ybb@arrl.org