Adam Bender

The Senate began a “hotline” process Tuesday night on Internet accessibility legislation (S-3304) by Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Mark Pryor, D-Ark., Senate staffers said Wednesday. Under the procedure, when a bill needs unanimous consent to pass, a phone message notifies all senators that they have one last chance to object. As of our deadline Wednesday afternoon, there hadn’t been objections from Democrats or Republicans, a staffer said. The House last month passed (CD July 27 p7) a similar bill, HR-5175, by Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass.

Revamping the Universal Service Fund should be an FCC priority, said Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. In a letter Tuesday to the commissioners, he asked the agency to “proceed with urgency” to fix problems in rural communications infrastructure exposed by the recent mining disaster in his home state. Rockefeller didn’t mention comprehensive USF legislation introduced July 22 by House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., and Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb. (CD July 26 p3).

The FCC would get $352.5 million in fiscal 2011 under an appropriations bill approved Thursday night by voice vote in the House Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee. That’s the amount President Barack Obama requested and 5 percent more than the $335.8 million the commission got for fiscal 2010. The FTC would get $319 million in fiscal 2011 under the House bill, $5 million more than Obama’s request and 9 percent more than the commission got for fiscal 2010. Earlier Thursday, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved a bill to give the FCC $355.8 million for fiscal 2011, a committee spokesman said. The FTC would get $314 million, the amount approved earlier in the week by the Financial Services Subcommittee (CD July 28 p13). Senate Appropriations voted 18-12 to report the measure, Republicans casting all the “no” votes. They objected not to the FCC or FTC budget but to the total spending proposed by the Senate. In the House subcommittee markup, Chairman José Serrano, D-N.Y., said the FTC is one of two agencies that “will improve their websites and telephone services for all consumers, including Spanish speaking consumers.” Subcommittee member John Culberson, R-Texas, didn’t make good on his threat to offer an amendment to prevent the FCC from spending money to regulate the Internet. He no longer plans to offer it, a House staffer said.

National Broadband Plan authors defended the document’s broadband speed recommendations in a laid-back and mostly friendly conversation Friday afternoon with the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association. Reporters and NTCA officials huddled on opposite ends of a large conference table, while in the middle and sitting across from each other, new NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield and former FCC broadband team members Blair Levin and Erik Garr debated what many rural carriers and some members of Congress have called the broadband plan’s double standard: 100 Mbps proposed for 100 million homes, but Universal Service Fund support in rural areas for only 4 Mbps.

The FCC could use auction proceeds to pay spectrum users that voluntarily give up their frequencies, under bipartisan legislation introduced Thursday by House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., and Ranking Member Cliff Stearns, R-Fla. The narrowly written, three-page bill would help the U.S. achieve the National Broadband Plan’s goal of finding 500 MHz of spectrum for broadband in the next 10 years, said Boucher. “It’s great to see the movement in Congress we're seeing on incentive auctions,” FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said in an interview.

Equipment makers could seek grants to develop public-safety devices that support voice, data and video communications in the 700 MHz spectrum, under a bipartisan bill introduced Wednesday by Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif. HR-5907 would set up a $70 million competition, run by NTIA, for research and development grants. “This process will produce devices ready for first responders’ use within five years -- hopefully sooner,” Harman said Wednesday on the House floor.

House Democrats’ “jobs agenda” includes expanding broadband and bridging the digital divide, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Wednesday at the Communications Workers of America’s legislative conference. “We cannot succeed, compete, prevail in the international marketplace; we cannot protect the American people and have real national security if we [allow] erosion of our manufacturing, our industrial and technological base to continue,” she said. Later, the union asked its members to work for narrow legislation confirming the FCC’s broadband authority. “There is a broad feeling in Congress on all sides -- Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative -- that Congress is the right place to fix this,” Shane Larson, a CWA director, said at the conference. “They just need to feel that sense of urgency.” Congress should remember that ISPs provide hundreds of thousands of jobs, while Craigslist, for example, supports only 30, he said. Communications workers won’t vote strictly by party in the November congressional elections, said CWA Executive Vice President Annie Hill. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., and other Democrats shouldn’t count on CWA’s support if they haven’t helped workers, Hill said. “Those days are gone, brothers and sisters, and it’s about damn time.” The union endorsed Lt. Gov. Bill Halter’s unsuccessful primary challenge to Lincoln. CWA will work to re-elect senators only if they support revamping Senate procedural rules to remove filibusters and other roadblocks to passing legislation, Hill said. “This Senate is the worst excuse for a democracy I have ever witnessed.” Larson agreed, saying the Senate has “totally constipated the federal government.”

Small businesses face barriers to selling cybersecurity services to the federal government, managers of such companies said at a hearing Wednesday of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities. Chair Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif., agreed it’s tough for companies with limited money to break into the Washington government market and asked for specific suggestions “about what we might change."

The Senate failed to close debate on the DISCLOSE Act, as expected (CD July 27 p8). S-3638 responds to the Supreme Court’s ruling on Citizen’s United. Splitting on party lines, senators voted 57-41, falling short of the 60 votes needed to end debate. The vote was “disappointing but not unexpected,” because Republicans were under great pressure to vote no, bill sponsor Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters. Democrats will hold another vote on the bill as soon as they can convince a Republican to support it, he said. Schumer is open to editing the bill to get the 60th vote, he said. He declined to guess when the vote would occur. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said he hoped the Senate will pass the bill before political advertising for the November election heats up. “This new law will not stifle anyone’s speech or their ability to advertise -- it merely requires them to do so out in the open,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said on the Senate floor. Big corporations should be required to stand by their ads, agreed Schumer. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told reporters that the bill is a “transparent effort” by Democrats to “rig the November election.” The latest version of the Senate bill doesn’t contain lowest-unit-charge provisions that broadcasters opposed.

The Senate may hotline a disabilities communications bill in a unanimous consent vote as soon as Tuesday, a Senate staffer told us. The House was expected to pass its own version Monday night, industry officials said. The House considered HR-3101 in the afternoon, but postponed votes until after our deadline. Monday was the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act.