Lieberman praises spectrum plan in Reid's debt-ceiling bill

Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-CT) praised a provision in Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) debt-ceiling bill that would allocate the D Block section of spectrum to emergency responders.

“I wish I could take credit for it, Sen. Reid putting it in,” Sen Lieberman said. “He, I think, wanted to benefit from the revenue part of it but also understood that if he did that without recognizing the needs of the first-responder community, he'd run into problems.” Reid’s bill sets aside $7 billion through fiscal 2017 for the creation of a nationwide interoperable public safety network. Sen Lieberman said he was disappointed that funding for the network was less than the nearly $11 billion that was included in a bill that passed the Senate Commerce Committee last month. Homeland Security Committee ranking member Susan Collins (R-Maine) supports creating a network for first-responders, but she said the issue should not be dealt with in a debt-ceiling bill.