Sneaky, sneaky -- remember U.S. President Barack Obama's big American Jobs Act, which he was plugging before the NFL season opener last Thursday?  Well, the proposed legislation was released Monday and it included a little something extra -- proposed authorization for the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to hold a special wireless spectrum auction, something President Obama has long been pushing.

Telecommunications companies like Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ), AT&T, Inc. (T), and Sprint Nextel Corp. (S) have been pushing for this auction for a long time.  They warn that they're running out of spectrum to deploy faster 4G wireless connections.  Meanwhile, they point out that many TV broadcasters are sitting on large unused chunks of spectrum.

The auction would likely be held sometime early next year and would be an incentive-based auction.  TV broadcasters would not be required to participate, but those who do would split the profits of sales of their unused spectrum with the government.

A handful of TV broadcasters are excited about the potential revenue from the option.  But a noisy contingent has protested the auction.  They claim that the FCC has not sufficiently considered interference that use of the spectrum for wireless devices might cause.  Thus they argue that their fellow broadcasters should not be allowed to sell their spectrum, and the auction should be scrapped.

The proposed spectrum auction has largely stalled thus far due to these protests.  Now it may finally advance.

If the auction is authorized, it would use $6.5B USD raised from the auction to fund the national Wi-Fi emergency broadcast network.  Firefighters, police, and other first responders would utilize the network.

The network was first proposed in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks of 2001 after emergency responders struggled to communicate with each other in the chaotic aftermath.  In early 2009, at the start of Obama's presidency an auction looked to create a public/private partnership to fund the network.  However, the auction failed due to lack of interest.

If the new plan succeeds, a 10 MHz block of the 700 MHz band -- the so-called "D-Block – would be applied to building the new network.  The majority of funding would go towards building physical wireless networking infrastructure into most major U.S. cities and securing the resulting network.

In his letter to Congress, Obama promotes the act, but doesn't spend much time specifically promoting the auction provision.  He writes:

To create jobs, I am submitting the American Jobs Act of 2011 -- nearly all of which is made up of the kinds of proposals supported by both Republicans and Democrats, and that the Congress should pass right away to get the economy moving now. The purpose of the American Jobs Act of 2011 is simple: put more people back to work and put more money in the pockets of working Americans.

However, he faces resistance in the House and Senate from his Republican rivals. Representative Eric Cantor, the Republican party House Majority Leader, writes:

What Washington needs and what the American people need is for us to find some agreement and there are plenty of things we can agree on. For instance, on the need for infrastructure spending, we believe that states have monies right now, but Washington has tied up their ability to use those monies. We want to straighten out the system of how money is spent before we start spending more.

We don't support the idea of creating a Fannie and Freddie for roads and bridges in an infrastructure bank. We believe that you can facilitate a better flow of funds to construction projects by fixing the current system. There's plenty for us to work on together. Instead of trying to accentuate where differences are, because good people can disagree, let's try to produce results so the middle class can get back to work in this country.

Like the President, most Republican rivals haven't directly commented on the auction and emergency network deployment plans (though Rep. Cantor's comment seems to allude to the latter deployment).

Thus the fate of President Obama's latest effort to push through the incentive-auction of unused TV spectrum largely rests on his ability to sell the Jobs Act as a whole.