Greetings. Mike Lisenco reminded me yesterday that I shouldn’t let too much time pass before bringing you up to speed on the legislative program since the Board Meeting. Here is a short recap of what we have done since the Board meeting, what we are doing right now, and what the Keelen Group has made happen for us so far this year since the Board meeting. 1. Frank McCarthy since before Christmas has been attempting to arrange a strategic planning meeting for himself, Josh Baggett of Rep. Kinzinger’s office, Dave Redl (Majority Counsel for Greg Walden’s House Communications and Technology subcommittee) and myself. Not for lack of trying, TKG has not yet been able to get Redl to meet with us. Redl is reportedly devoting full time and attention to the Net Neutrality issue and he has been difficult to corral. Frank is still working on that. We want to get Redl’s take on our “shortcut” approach to FCC to accomplish CC&R preemption, and discuss his (so far) unsuccessful contacts with Roger Sherman at FCC’s Wireless Bureau. Then, as necessary, we will try to do as Matt Keelen proposes which is to get our people in front of Greg Walden and move that effort to a higher level. We have to meet with Redl first, however as a practical matter, no matter how inaccessible he is, because we can’t afford to lose his support during any part of this process. 2. Josh Baggett had the House Office of Legislative Counsel draft a new Bill. Josh sent it to us for our approval. It is fine: it will be identical to last year’s Bill (except for the number of years it has been since PRB-1 was issued by FCC in the recitations section). I met on the first day of the new Congress with Adam Kinzinger (who saw me and immediately asked how Amateur Radio is doing now; I reported “well, thanks to you…”; it was a good sign and it is clear that we have strong support for the Bill from Kinzinger). Kinzinger has agreed to sponsor the Bill again, and just today, Rep. Courtney of Connecticut said that he would be the original minority cosponsor again. TKG and Mike Lisenco are now actively initiating efforts to recruit our last years’ cosponsors to be original cosponsors on this year’s House Bill. We will continue to do that in the hopes of dropping the bill in the next month or so with a bunch of cosponsors already signed on. All is well on the House side. 3. On the Senate side, we are effectively starting from scratch without the advantages we have had in the House. We have no ham friends in the Senate in a leadership position or otherwise. Nevertheless, I have been under the impression that this Bill largely sells itself, and it may be so in the Senate as well as in the House even though we don’t have a Greg Walden in the Senate. We have been making the rounds of Senators on the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. Only just in the last couple of days have the Republican members of the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation, and the Internet been appointed. They are Senators Roger Wicker (Chair - MS), Roy Blunt (MO), Marco Rubio (FL), Kelly Ayotte (NH), Ted Cruz (TX), Deb Fischer (NE), Jerry Moran (KS), Dan Sullivan (AK), Ron Johnson (WI), Dean Heller NV), Cory Gardner (CO) and Steve Daines (MT). The only Democrat on the Subcommittee that we know of so far is Brian Schatz (HI), the Ranking Member; the rest of the minority members will be appointed shortly. 4. On January 30, Frank McCarthy and I visited three Senators' offices trolling for sponsors for the companion Bill: Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) and Cory Gardner (R-CO). All three of those meetings went well, especially the first two. Matt Keelen has some good contacts with Ayotte and Gardner. We did not (as we expected) get firm commitments of original sponsorship or cosponsorship from any of those three offices. That comes later. Cantwell and Gardner serve on the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee but not on the subcommittee. Yesterday, February 3, Frank and I met with the offices of Senators Blunt (R-MO), Blumenthal (D-CT) Manchin (D-WV) and Thune (R-SD). In the first three offices, we were met by substitute staffers instead of the legislative assistants, but all three meetings went well. The last one, however, was worth the whole day. We met with Senator Thune’s Committee staff people who do telecommunications full time. They spent about 45 minutes with us, took careful notes, and asked good questions. They wanted to help us and toward the end of the meeting were offering to approach subcommittee members to help us recruit sponsors and cosponsors. When we exhausted our presentation and their questions, they asked what else the Committee could do for us. I discussed the enforcement situation and gave them an outline of the gradual deterioration in amateur radio enforcement, our theory of effective deterrence as a means of using fewer resources and the FCC’s failure to make good use of our Amateur Auxiliary volunteers. They took a lot of notes about that also. We made some good and important friends there yesterday. We went in knowing that Thune would not sponsor a Senate companion bill in his own Committee, but we wanted to make sure that, as Chairman of the committee of jurisdiction that he wouldn't be hostile to the Bill. Quite the contrary; that was a *very* positive meeting. 5. Just now, today, Josh Baggett asked us for a draft “Dear Colleague” letter for Kinzinger to send to other Congresspersons about signing on as cosponsors. This is a very positive development in the House and should help us recruit a lot of cosponsors quickly. I am working on that draft for Josh now. Let me know any questions. I will follow up as soon as I know more. 73, Chris W3KD -- Christopher D. Imlay Booth, Freret & Imlay, LLC 14356 Cape May Road Silver Spring, Maryland 20904-6011 (301) 384-5525 telephone (301) 384-6384 facsimile W3KD@ARRL.ORG