Having failed to make sufficient cases for themselves in the Senate Commerce Committee, two prominent senators - considered by some to be 2008 presidential "hopefuls" - are attempting today on the Senate floor to move up the digital television transition date by one year, and to cut the amount of subsidy reserved for purchasing set-top converter boxes for existing analog TV sets.

But the means by which Sen. John Ensign (R - Nevada) and Sen. John McCain (R - Arizona) have set about to make these changes are not by amendments to the Digital Transition and Public Safety bill which passed their committee last week, but to the more mercurial annual 2006 Senate budget reconciliation bill, which is more likely to pass.

The Ensign amendment would cut $2 billion from the $3 billion subsidy the DTPSA bill would appropriate to subsidize the purchase of set-top converter boxes, and would also help reconcile the Senate's plan with the House Energy and Commerce Committee's own version of the Digital Transition Bill, which passed that committee last week. In a floor debate yesterday, Sen. Ted Stevens (R - Alaska) who led the charge for the DTPSA bill's passage in the Commerce Committee, which he leads, spoke out against the Ensign amendment, stating that $1 billion would not be adequate funds to secure enough set-top boxes to help Americans through the digital transition. Based on informal bids already secured by Congress, $1 billion would purchase 25 million set-top boxes, though some are saying as many as 73 million sets nationwide would be without either broadcast or cable signals by the originally scheduled transition date of January 1, 2009.

Sen. Stevens later toned down his comments, suggesting that the best place to reconcile subsidy amounts is in a joint committee session with House leaders, not by amending the budget reconciliation bill.

The McCain amendment is the latest move by the tireless veteran to make the current VHF television spectrum available for first responders (public safety officials) as soon as possible. It would move the transition date forward one year, from April 7, 2009 to April 7, 2008.

The purpose of a budget reconciliation bill is to enact all changes to budgetary language necessary to balance the federal budget - or, in the real world, to make it more balanced than it actually was. The concept is credited to Sen. Robert Byrd (D - West Virginia), for whom the "Byrd Rule" is named. The rule places limits on bills that are under consideration within a given period of time, a "budgetary phase," such that these bills can either appropriate money from the budget or raise money for the Treasury. This way, the Senate is prohibited from appropriating funds from sources outside the Federal Budget - which very recently, used to be a problem.

Sen. Stevens was able to fast-track the DTPSA bill by making it, in effect, a budget bill. He did this by having the bill raise money for the Treasury by means of an auction of VHF TV spectrum reclaimed by the Federal Communications Commission. Moneys claimed through this auction benefit the Treasury, but only after certain extra appropriations have been met. A bill can spend money on a federal program if the main purpose - raising money for the Treasury - is being met. The Senate bill plans to raise at least $10 billion through this auction, and spend $4.45 billion of that amount on set-top box subsidies and other programs, before releasing the residual to the Treasury.

Sen. Ensign's proposed amendment to the reconciliation bill counts as legitimate under the Byrd rule, since it directly addresses the appropriation, and would turn over $2 billion more to the Treasury if passed. But Sen. McCain's amendment faces a possible "point-of-order" procedural challenge when it comes before the floor later this afternoon, since it addresses not the issue of money, but of time. If McCain can't make a strong enough argument in favor of his amendment within the 90 seconds that will be allotted for his speech, it could fail to come up for a vote.

Besides, said Sen. Stevens yesterday, moving up the transition date by one year would give the FCC only two months to hold its spectrum auction, which he characterized as a procedural impossibility.

Legislative action by both Senators McCain and Ensign are being scrutinized more closely these days, as both are being considered likely candidates for the Republican nomination for President in 2008, or perhaps to serve together on the same ticket. McCain is a co-sponsor of the Ensign amendment.