Telecom companies spent at least $78 million over the past two years to try to influence state officials who were considering new rules of competition, according to a report by the Center for Public Integrity, a non-partisan watchdog group.
The report, to be released Thursday, singles out SBC, Verizon and AT&T as the top spenders among the big telecoms. SBC and Verizon have been pushing to wrest free of state regulations, hopeful of using those victories to influence legislation at the federal level.
Congress is preparing to rewrite the landmark Telecommunications Act of 1996, which established new rules of competition for phone and cable companies. AT&T had a key role in drafting the 1996 rules. But now AT&T is being acquired by SBC. (Verizon is buying MCI.)
With AT&T out of the picture, John Dunbar, the report's author, worries that the Bells, strengthened by their political donations, could unfairly influence the revision of the telecom act. That could lead to rules that don't offer adequate protection for consumers, he says.
"In the past, we could take comfort in knowing that (AT&T and the Bells) were beating each other bloody," Dunbar says. "That goes away."
Dunbar says the actual amount the telecoms spent on lobbying could be much higher than the report could pinpoint. That's because rules for disclosure of lobbying activity vary sharply from state to state, he says. Texas, for example, requires carriers to report only a range of lobbying expenditures. SBC, based in Texas, reported spending $14 million to $26 million in the state.
The upshot: The sum the telecoms spent to lobby in the states could "easily be double" what the report found, Dunbar says.
According to the report, SBC spent at least $16.3 million to lobby state governments in 2003 and 2004. Verizon spent $11.2 million. And from 1999 through 2004, SBC and Verizon spent $10.1 million and $5.3 million on campaign donations, respectively.