The Rural Utilities Service advised broadband loan applicants to wait to submit applications until RUS provides updates to its financial models. The new models are “imminent,” it said in a stakeholder announcement released Monday. The recent FCC order revamping the Universal Service Fund made it necessary for RUS to revise the models, RUS said. The new models will allow RUS to better evaluate the “financial feasibility of new projects,” it said. “We believe these updates are necessary to take into account regulatory changes and we regret any confusion that may have occurred as a result.” A rumor circulated last week that RUS was canceling the broadband loans program, but an Agriculture Department official said it was false. “RUS is currently accepting applications for both the infrastructure and the Farm Bill programs, which have not been suspended,” the stakeholder announcement said. OPASTCO is monitoring the situation closely, said Vice President Randy Tyree.
Congress is “really close” to passing spectrum legislation as part of the payroll tax cut extension bill, U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra said at an event hosted by Politico. The Commerce Department’s privacy report is also coming soon, he said. Spectrum is likely to be part of House-Senate conference negotiations over the payroll tax cut legislation, Chopra said. The CTO “is very, very, very hopeful that we will finish the job on spectrum and do so in short order,” he said. Chopra sees “bipartisan agreement” on voluntary incentive auctions, he said. Chopra supported FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski in seeking flexibility for the commission to shape auction rules, because the FCC is the expert agency on spectrum, he said. There’s growing consensus to provide about $7 billion for the public safety network, he said. President Barack Obama “in no way wants a public safety system that doesn’t take advantage of” the latest communications technology, Chopra said. The White House prefers the Senate’s approach to spectrum legislation, Chopra said. S-911, agreed to by members of both parties in the Senate Commerce Committee, tackled the White House’s major goals “with absolute beauty,” Chopra said. “Even on the House side,” which has its own proposal, “there’s a lot of agreement, just a lot of tactical maneuvering,” he said. Chopra said he has read the upcoming White House privacy report but it’s still being evaluated by agencies. The report “calls on the industry to promote voluntary industry-consensus standards activities that can be enforceable,” he said. On the continuing debate over online copyright legislation, Chopra said the White House does not support censorship but believes there should be tools to combat Internet piracy.
Google spent nearly as much as AT&T and Comcast on lobbying in Q4 2011, according to quarterly federal lobbying reports available last Friday. Facebook and Netflix also accelerated their Washington spending as debate over online copyright issues intensified in the fourth quarter. Spectrum legislation, the recently dissolved AT&T/T-Mobile transaction and controversy over possible LightSquared GPS interference also drove communications industry lobbying in the fourth quarter, the disclosure reports showed.
A proposed government agency merger including NTIA (CD Jan 17 p1) is unlikely to “make much difference” for the agency, said Henry Geller, who was the first NTIA administrator. “In the new combine, I would guess that it would have the same lack of clout in dealing with DOD [the Defense Department](NSA)[National Security Agency] and the independent agency, FCC,” Geller said. Leadership affects the agency’s relative importance more than government organization, he said. “Effective government turns on whether the people in charge are well connected with the Executive Office and Congress, so it does matter who leads the new combined agency.”
Congress is close to passing cybersecurity legislation, House and Senate aides told the State of the Net conference Tuesday. The Senate, returning from recess next week, is “narrowing in” on a cybersecurity bill to bring to the floor in three to four weeks, said Tommy Ross, aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Meanwhile, House committees are marking up individual bills to be combined later, House aides said.
President Barack Obama received twice as many campaign contribution dollars from the Communications and Electronics sector as the entire field of GOP challengers in the 2012 election cycle so far. But among House incumbents, GOP members continued to receive more than Democratic members in political action committee contributions from the sector heading into 2012, showed data from the Center for Responsive Politics. The numbers are consistent with a trend of PACs favoring incumbents and the party in control (CD July 19 p1).
NTIA would be swept up in a merger of government agencies proposed Friday by President Barack Obama. Obama proposed combining the U.S. Commerce Department’s “core business and trade functions” with the Small Business Administration, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corp. and the U.S. Trade and Development Agency. The Commerce Department bucket includes NTIA and other subordinate agencies except NOAA, which would move to the Interior Department, White House officials said. Obama asked Congress to give him “consolidation authority” to make the proposed mergers and future reorganizations. Members of Congress appeared supportive of the plan, in statements Friday.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, doesn’t think he should have to ask congressional Commerce Committee chairmen to act as intermediaries in his ongoing standoff (CD Jan 6 p1) with FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski over access to documents related to the LightSquared proceeding, a Grassley spokeswoman said. Grassley, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is blocking a vote on the pending nominations of Jessica Rosenworcel and Ajit Pai to seats on the FCC because Genachowski has refused to provide the documents. Genachowski has argued that the FCC historically has honored document requests only from the chairman of committees with jurisdiction over the commission, and he has cited supporting guidance in the Congressional Research Service’s non-binding Congressional Oversight Manual.
The U.S. State Department should “expeditiously investigate” Huawei and other telecom companies that may be providing Iran with technology to suppress free speech, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and five other lawmakers said. Huawei and other telecom firms may be violating Section 106 of the 2010 Comprehensive Iran Sanctions Accountability and Divestment Act, the legislators wrote in a Dec. 22 letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton released last week. The law prohibits the federal government from entering into or renewing contracts with companies that export sensitive telecom tech to Iran. The State Department should “ensure taxpayer funds are not being used to support companies engaged in such activity,” the lawmakers said. The Department also should review whether telecom companies operating in Iran “are in violation of other U.S. government sanctions, such as those prohibiting companies from engaging in business with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.” Citing articles by the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg, the lawmakers said companies possibly in violation of U.S. law include: Huawei, Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks, Creativity Software and AdaptiveMobile Security. The lawmakers’ letter cites a media report that was “so fundamentally factually flawed” that Huawei issued a statement debunking the “misinformation,” a Huawei spokesman said. “It is very, very unfortunate that this letter was generated based on utter misinformation.” Huawei complies with all international laws and regulations, including U.N. and U.S. sanctions, he said. That includes the company’s business in Iran, he said. The company never sold anything to Iran “that was not built to global, commercial specifications” that are used by Huawei in all of the more than 140 markets it does business, and that are used by “virtually every vendor in our industry,” he said. Huawei decided in December to stop taking new business in Iran “but we will live up to our contractual obligations in terms of existing customers,” he said. The company “has never researched or developed or sold any monitoring or filtering technologies,” he said.
The House Commerce Committee wasn’t satisfied by the FCC’s explanation for using an adjusted spectrum screen in its review of the recently failed AT&T/T-Mobile transaction. Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., last month questioned the FCC process (CD Dec 8 p2) behind the change, as well as the decision to release a staff report about the deal after AT&T and T-Mobile withdrew their application. In a letter dated Dec. 20 and released last week, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski replied that no formal rulemaking is required to change the spectrum screen, and that it would have been inappropriate to “suppress the completed [staff] report.”