Locked in the Payroll Tax Fight

By Brad

Over at The National Journal, Juliana Gruenwald has a good overview of the ongoing effort to free up more spectrum for public safety and wireless services:

Stakeholders in the year-long debate over spectrum legislation find themselves in a bit of a holding pattern while lawmakers try to figure out how to break a congressional logjam over how to extend a payroll-tax holiday.

House GOP leaders included a version of spectrum legislation approved earlier this month by the Energy and Commerce Communications and Technology Subcommittee in legislation the House passed last week providing a one-year extension of the payroll-tax cut. But the package passed by the Senate on Saturday providing a two-month payroll-tax holiday did not include spectrum legislation. On Tuesday, House GOP leaders balked at calls to pass the Senate’s payroll bill before leaving town for its holiday break, and instead say they want to negotiate with the Senate over the differences between the two bills.