D.C. notebook | Seeking cable-bill relief

WASHINGTON — Besides commute times and taxes, almost nothing annoys American consumers like their cable bills.

With that in mind, U.S. Reps. Norm Dicks, D-Bremerton, and Adam Smith, D-Tacoma, urged the Federal Communications Commission to give a break to cable subscribers in Tacoma last week.

The pair, along with Tacoma Mayor Bill Baarsma and state Rep. Dennis Flannigan, D-Tacoma, asked the federal agency to grant a waiver involving specifications on new cable set-top boxes to Tacoma's Click! Network cable provider.

Their prayer is a long shot. The FCC and the Consumer Electronics Association want newer cable boxes for cable customers to connect their TV sets to the system, using special card inserts that enhance security against cable-signal pirates.

Click! charges subscribers $1.50 per month for its cable box, which cost the company about $79 each. The newer boxes for digital TV, which are supposed to go into use July 1, would cost Click! $229, said the letters. This could increase cable rates.

Flannigan ended his note with a handwritten message, "Please help Click!"

The FCC granted very limited waivers Friday to three other cable companies.

It has 90 days to decide on Click!'s petition.

But in January the agency's chairman turned down a waiver petition from Comcast, the major national system that handles Seattle and parts of Tacoma, citing too many requests for extension by the cable industry.

The FCC is trying to avoid monopoly in the set-top-box industry, under a 1998 ruling designed to allow consumers to buy set-top boxes off the shelves in stores. That is ultimately supposed to enhance cable competition.

"Click! has only raised rates twice in 10 years," said the politicians' letters lauding the public utility-run cable company, which also serves University Place, Fircrest and Lakewood.

Comcast has kept its rates lower in areas where it competes with Click! said Diane Lachel, Click!'s government-relations manager. In Seattle, where Comcast has no competition, Comcast's cable rates are higher, she noted.

In the Senate last week, Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., demonstrated her environmental commitment by recycling — a bill.

She reintroduced her 2005 legislation intended to stop gasoline price gouging and to make the Federal Trade Commission investigate energy companies' price spikes to consumers. Cantwell will try to get the bill through the Commerce Committee in two weeks, but she also may push it as an amendment to another bill on gas-mileage standards Tuesday.

She will meet with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., today to strategize.

The bill is controversial among oil-industry supporters, and it led to a confrontation between her and Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, in November 2005, on national TV, over his refusal to make energy company CEOs testify under oath about gas-price increases.

Last year, Stevens offered to introduce his own bill protecting consumers against gas-price gouging, but it seems unlikely the Democrats will take him up on that now that they are in charge.

Alicia Mundy: 202-662-7457 or amundy@seattletimes.com