House Vote Advances the Fight to Keep AM Radio in New Cars

0:00 Speaker 1 Sunday morning. With us today is David Donovan, and he is the president of the New York State Broadcasters Association, and he is enjoying victory, well, at least in the House of Representatives, where it was unanimously approached. AM radio that, I guess, is part of FEMA. I guess it keeps Americans safe, and there’s going to be an AM radio

0:27 in every car in America. but only for the next eight years guaranteed. And we still got to get the United States Senate approval and President Trump is going to sign it. David Donovan, give us the pulse of the situation.

0:44 Tell us about this victory that we got. Is it temporary or forever?

0:52 Speaker 2 Well, John, look, it was a long, hard fight. And I just want to start off by saying thank you for all the work you’ve done to try to make sure that American consumers have access to AM, but most importantly, access to emergency alert messages, which are the cornerstone of the AM service. Look, this bill that passed, and it

1:11 took a lot of time to get it moving, was a bipartisan bill with more than 317 members of Congress co-sponsoring this legislation in nearly all of the New York delegation. And you rarely see that. But what this bill did, and it passed, you’re right, unanimously on a voice vote in the U.S. House of Representatives, is establishes a requirement

1:38 that automobile manufacturers have to keep AM receivers in the dashboard in a conspicuous place. And it requires the Department of Transportation to adopt the rule. They have a year to adopt the rule, and then they implement the rule.

1:56 And So what it sends is a dramatic signal to the automobile industry, don’t take free AM radio out of your cars. But you’re right, there’s a lot of work that’s still left to be done. First of all, we have to get this through the Senate, and getting floor time on the Senate for a vote is always difficult,

2:17 particularly in an election year. We are going to try to get it done soon, but it may occur after the election. But Again, there is overwhelming support in the Senate. And, you know, thanks to a lot of work that you’ve done, the President of the United States supports this idea. And it’s absolutely essential for our national security. Now, you did

2:39 mention the eight years. And sometimes when you’re trying to move legislation, you have to, I won’t say always compromise, but what happened was on this, in order to get it through a unanimous vote, You have, obviously, folks who work in districts with the automobile manufacturers and makers. And so this was a compromise to try to get this

3:06 bill moving. Because if we hadn’t got this bill moving, you would have seen automakers move fairly rapidly to start taking AM radios out of their dashboards. So what it does is that It establishes a baseline that these have to be in the cars. It tells the automakers that you can’t do this unilaterally, that Congress is going to

3:30 get involved. But it does mean that we’re going to have to be ever vigilant to make sure AM, and we can talk about FM, but to make sure that AM radios stay in cars for consumers, for commuters, and to make sure they have access to emergency communications.

3:50 Speaker 1 Understood. And I’ve been told that the Senate is not going to vote for anything until probably after the election. Do you have the same pulse?

4:06 Speaker 2 I think that’s probably correct, although being ever hopeful, John, maybe, maybe. We could try to move it for four, but candidly, everyone’s going home for elections right now. This will be what we refer to as a lame duck, which will be a vote after the election. But since this, unlike other bills, has such bipartisan support in both the Senate

4:32 and both Republicans and Senate Democrats, I think this is the type of bill that could get passed after the election, either as an individual separate bill, or as attached to a much larger bill when they’re trying to do cleanup issues before the end of the year.

4:51 Speaker 1 Well, David Donovan, New York State Broadcasters Association, thank you so much for coming on, and let’s keep the public informed, and we stand together to help America.

5:03 Speaker 2 Well, John, thank you, and again, thank you for all your work on this. And what it says to your listeners is that we have to remain vigilant out there, But I also do want to thank Frank Pallone, who was a leader and he was ranking Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, who worked to try to move

5:22 this bill as well. And I know he’s within your listening audience. And also Senator Schumer that we are working with right now, who’s been a supporter of this bill. And we’re going to work with him to try to move this bill forward.

5:33 Speaker 1 I believe, as you know, I believe in common sense Democrats and common sense Republicans together. And I believe that both parties should work together as Americans versus working for their party versus working for the socialists.

5:49 Speaker 2 I fully agree, John. And this is the epitome of a common sense solution. And it should pass.

5:56 Speaker 1 Thank you so much.