Several top tech and telecom companies reported major swings in their Q1 lobbying spending. Google and AT&T showed significant drops, while Twitter and Sprint saw increases. Tech companies and groups generally had big upticks, as did at least one telecom provider being taken over.
The House Communications Subcommittee is eyeing a potential April 30 hearing on illegal robocalls, communications sector lobbyists told us. The potential hearing would come immediately after the House reconvenes after its two-week Easter/Passover recess. The House Commerce Committee didn't comment. The Senate Commerce Communications Subcommittee held a similar robocalls hearing earlier in April amid a push to pass the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act (S-151) by unanimous consent once the Senate reconvenes (see 1904110066).
The White House won't “provide the Committee with protected communications between [President Donald Trump] and his most senior advisors” related to the House Judiciary Committee's questions about whether the president pressured two now-former administration officials to ensure the DOJ filed a now-ended lawsuit to block AT&T's buy of Time Warner, Counsel Pat Cipollone wrote committee Democratic leaders. House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., and Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman David Cicilline, D-R.I., pressed the Trump administration in March for the documents amid reports that Trump in 2017 ordered then-National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn and then-White House Chief of Staff John Kelly to pressure DOJ into mounting the legal challenge to AT&T/TW (see 1903080044). DOJ said in February it wouldn't further appeal its challenge of the deal after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled against it (see 1902260040).
Officials in President Donald Trump's administration and the FCC spoke optimistically about the U.S. path forward on rural broadband and spectrum policy during a Monday NTCA event, citing 2018 successes and actions slated for this year. The FCC's plans to follow up the USF Connect America Fund with a new $20.4 billion Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (see 1904120065) received some attention at the event, but more focus was on upcoming spectrum auctions and ways to increase rural broadband deployments.
The White House's Friday push to highlight FCC actions to improve 5G deployments and rural broadband connectivity was more notable for giving President Donald Trump an opportunity to go on record as opposing 5G nationalization, industry officials and lobbyists told us. Concerns about the Trump administration's direction on 5G policy have continued for more than a year, including on Capitol Hill (see 1903050069).
Rep. Steve Stivers, R-Ohio, plans to refile the Open Internet Preservation Act in a bid to provide additional alternative net neutrality legislation that doesn't involve reclassifying broadband as a Communications Act Title II service. The bill, previously filed in 2017, would bar blocking and throttling but not paid prioritization. It would prevent the FCC from ever again claiming Title II or Section 706 as a legal basis for expanding net neutrality rules (see 1712190062). The House passed the Save the Internet Act net neutrality bill Wednesday. HR-1644 would reverse the FCC order rescinding 2015 net neutrality rules and restore reclassification of broadband as a Title II service (see 1904100062). "As the new House Majority pushes another attempt at protecting the Obama Administration’s FCC legacy of 'Net Neutrality' from 2015, House Republicans have again committed to a free and open internet," Stivers said in a letter to colleagues seeking co-sponsors for his bill. "Republicans have provided multiple legislative solutions seeking to codify the principles of Net Neutrality in law -- without resorting to" Title II. House Commerce Committee Republicans filed three alternative net neutrality bills in February as pathways to compromise legislation that wouldn’t rely on Title II as a legal basis -- the Open Internet Act (HR-1006), Promoting Internet Freedom and Innovation Act (HR-1096) and HR-1101 (see 1902250051). Stivers defended the lack of paid prioritization language in the bill, saying "taken to its logical extent, an absolute ban on paid prioritization could impact" existing "arrangements that are pro-consumer." Different "types of data are prioritized on both a paid and unpaid basis, and we need this to happen," he wrote. "Republicans can all oppose anti-competitive fast lanes, and we’ve proven that we are open to legislation codifying those protections, but pro-consumer agreements should not be thrown out to support the flawed promise of Title II regulation."
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., separately said Thursday they plan to talk with President Donald Trump's administration in the coming weeks about infrastructure funding in a bid to revive interest in enacting a comprehensive bill to allocate up to $2 trillion for broadband and other projects. Trump sought in his February State of the Union for Congress to “unite for a great rebuilding of America's crumbling infrastructure” (see 1902060002). In 2018, he called for a bill “that generates at least $1.5 trillion for the new infrastructure investment” that relied heavily on public-private partnerships, though that effort stalled (see 1803290046). The communications sector has been hopeful there will be more appetite for infrastructure legislation this year because Democrats regained the majority in the House in the 2018 election (see 1811130011). Schumer told reporters he and Pelosi will meet with Trump in the coming weeks. They will warn Trump that “if [the administration is] not going to put real money and have real labor and environmental protections” in a final bill, “we're not going to get anywhere,” Schumer said. Legislation needs to provide “at least $1 trillion” in funding, but “I'd like it to be closer to $2 trillion,” Pelosi said at a House Democratic retreat in Leesburg, Virginia. Senate Assistant Democratic Leader Patty Murray of Washington led filing of the Digital Equity Act, which would allocate federal funding for digital inclusion projects. Many tech stakeholders immediately praised it.
Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., said he's aiming for the chamber to pass the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act (S-151) by unanimous consent (UC) once Congress returns at the end of April from its two-week recess. Thune and other subcommittee members boosted the bill during Thursday's hearing on illegal robocalls. S-151 would increase FCC authority to act against robocalls violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. It would increase coordination between federal agencies and state attorneys general in a bid to increase criminal prosecution of illegal robocallers (see 1901170039). Other anti-robocall legislation is also coming, lawmakers said.
The FCC intends to begin its auction of spectrum in the 37, 39 and 47 GHz bands Dec. 10 and plans to begin work on a fund targeting broadband deployment in unserved rural areas, Chairman Ajit Pai told reporters Friday morning. The announcements came ahead of Pai's planned participation in an afternoon event with President Donald Trump aimed at clarifying that the U.S. isn't headed toward a nationalized 5G network, as we reported Thursday. That event is set to begin just before 2:30 p.m., the White House said.
There was bipartisan agreement among Senate Commerce Committee members Wednesday that the federal government's practices for collecting broadband coverage data remain deficient and that Capitol Hill needs to begin taking action. Senate Commerce and others on the Hill repeatedly have raised those issues in recent years. NTIA's increased role in coordinating federal work on broadband mapping got scrutiny earlier this month at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the Commerce Department's fiscal year 2020 budget request (see 1904020070). Deficiencies in the FCC's data collection practices was a central issue at a Senate Communications Subcommittee hearing last month on rural broadband (see 1903120069).