Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., wants to know why FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski met with White House officials more times over a 23-month period than the secretaries of State, Defense, Energy, Treasury and Homeland Security combined. In a letter Thursday to Genachowski, the House Oversight Committee chairman said the meetings may show improper White House influence over the FCC’s net neutrality rulemaking. “The FCC has done little to demonstrate its independence from the White House,” Issa said.
The House Communications Subcommittee plans a spectrum hearing April 12, a subcommittee spokeswoman said Wednesday. The hearing on “Using Spectrum to Advance Public Safety, Promote Broadband, Create Jobs, and Reduce the Deficit” is at 1:30 p.m. in Room 2123, Rayburn House Office Building. Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., previewed the hearing in a speech last week (CD March 18 p3).
Google and the New America Foundation took the wraps off a broadband map that displays median download and upload speeds around the world, making use of open, publicly available M-Lab data. “There’s a lot of assertions” about global broadband rankings, “but those are often not very quantitative, so we're very interested in making those more crisp and understandable,” said Google Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf, demonstrating the tool at a New America Foundation event Wednesday. Speakers also discussed broadband usage caps and bandwidth-intensive video apps such as Netflix.
AT&T’s T-Mobile deal raises the stakes for carriers seeking the 700 MHz D-block in a commercial auction, telecom industry officials and observers said Tuesday. AT&T and Verizon Wireless are the only carriers with nationwide 700 MHz holdings. The deal may bolster arguments to increase the spectrum assets of AT&T’s remaining competitors, but it may still be politically difficult for lawmakers to side against public safety, which wants the spectrum reallocated before this year’s 10th anniversary of 9/11, officials said.
Expect more Capitol Hill scrutiny on AT&T and T-Mobile’s merger than was seen for the Comcast-NBC Universal combination, telecom industry lobbyists said. The $39 billion deal could steal attention from spectrum and other telecom issues, they said. The House and Senate Judiciary committees each announced hearings Monday. Neither Commerce Committee announced a hearing, but Democratic members from each have urged close scrutiny of the landmark deal (CD Bulletin March 21).
The Senate Communications Subcommittee may have a spectrum hearing March 30, Capitol Hill and industry officials said. House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., has said his subcommittee will have a hearing next month (CD March 18 p3). A slew of overlapping spectrum bills have been referred to the subcommittee, including by Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass., Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, Mark Warner, D-Va., and Roger Wicker, R-Miss., as well as full committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and Ranking Member Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas. The wealth of bipartisan interest provides a good opportunity to move forward on spectrum reform, a Senate aide said.
Major wireless carriers said they'll act as quickly as possible to transfer mobile text donations targeted to Japanese relief efforts. In a letter Friday to the CEOs of the four top carriers, Senate Commerce Committee member Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., urged acceleration of the mobile donation process, which can take 30 to 90 days because money isn’t sent until customers pay their monthly bills.
Privacy may be one issue where Democrats and Republicans can find consensus in the House Commerce Committee, “if there’s a willingness to do so,” Ranking Member Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said in a speech Thursday to the Consumer Federation of America. Some Republicans are concerned about the issue, and Waxman was also encouraged when the White House on Wednesday signaled it wants Congress to take action (CD March 17 p9). While lawmakers must avoid stifling innovation, it’s important to protect consumers who don’t want their personal browser data tracked and sold, Waxman said. If unchecked, that data could be accessed by the government or used by insurance companies when determining rates and coverage, he said: “The issue boils down to a consumer’s right to know and the consumer’s right to stop this kind of thing from happening.”
The FCC’s actions on net neutrality have made Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., skeptical of the commission’s proposal to hold voluntary incentive auctions, the House Communications Subcommittee chairman said in a keynote speech for the Media Institute. The subcommittee plans a spectrum hearing in April, he said. Earlier, speaking at a Consumer Federation of America event about a coming House floor vote on net neutrality, Ranking Member Henry Waxman, D-Calif., of the parent Commerce Committee said Democrats hope to send a message that the GOP effort to reverse the FCC rules won’t withstand a presidential veto.
The House may vote on legislation to nullify the FCC net neutrality order before the Easter recess next month, Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., told us. With all Democrats voting no, the committee late Tuesday voted 30-23 to report to the House floor H.J. Res. 37, a joint resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act. Republicans so far have only secured Democratic support for the resolution from two Blue Dogs in the House (CD March 15 p2). Asked if he expected to find more Democrats, Upton said, “We'll see. We're going to keep trying, that’s for sure.” At the markup, Upton rejected two amendments to the net neutrality measure by Democrats because he said CRA resolutions are not subject to amendment under the statute. The amendments, by Reps. Mike Doyle, D-Pa., and Doris Matsui, D-Calif., were also rejected for that reason at last week’s Communications Subcommittee markup. A companion resolution in the Senate has not moved out of the Senate Commerce Committee, but House passage would move it straight to the Senate floor for another simple majority vote. The Senate may also discharge the bill from committee before House passage with the support of 30 senators. Free Press Action Fund Managing Director Craig Aaron said it’s “unfortunate that the open Internet, which once enjoyed such broad bipartisan support, now has become the victim of special-interest politics and political grandstanding.”