Senate Communications Subcommittee ranking member John Thune, R-S.D., and Chairman Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., led filing Monday of the Rural Internet Improvement Act in a bid to bolster Agriculture Department broadband programs’ funding for rural areas. The measure, which Lujan and Thune first filed in November (see 2211290064), would combine USDA’s traditional broadband loan and grant program and the ReConnect program. It would also mandate that ReConnect funding goes only to areas in which 90% of households are unserved, and would make changes to the program’s challenge process. Thune’s office suggested the legislation is among his proposals for inclusion in the 2023 farm bill process. “Our bipartisan legislation would help bridge the digital divide by improving” ReConnect “to ensure its funding goes to truly unserved areas,” Thune said. The “difference between fast internet, slow internet, and no internet” must “change to bridge the digital divide that leaves rural and Tribal communities unconnected,” Lujan said. Sens. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., are co-sponsors. Thune’s office cited support from the American Farm Bureau Federation, NCTA, NTCA and other agricultural groups.

Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, on Monday reintroduced legislation that would amend Communications Decency Act Section 230 and require platforms to report illegal drug sales and other illicit activity (see 2009290065). Originally introduced in 2020, the See Something, Say Something Online Act would require platforms to “report suspicious activity to law enforcement, similar to the way that banks are required to report suspicious transactions over $10,000 or others that might signal criminal activity.” The legislation “strong-arms online platforms into handing over the correspondence of civil rights and parents groups to law enforcement simply because speech and chat websites would need to take a better-safe-than-sorry approach to maintain protection from liability,” said NetChoice Vice President Carl Szabo.

The House Commerce Committee voted 28-23 Tuesday against an amendment from ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., seeking to change GOP-led panel rules to continue allowing the minority party to select its share of hearing witnesses without majority party approval. The amendment would have allowed witnesses to appear virtually without the Commerce chair’s approval. Allowing “witnesses to participate remotely in those hearings provided the opportunity for the committee to hear from a diverse group of people from outside of Washington, D.C., and from all walks of life,” Pallone said: He cited full House rules for this Congress that give the House majority leader “new veto” power to deny requests for remote witness testimony. “Rather than taking advantage of the technological tools that allows us to engage with Americans where they are, instead of forcing them to come to us, I am afraid that Republicans’ unnecessary restrictions on remote witnesses means Congress will only hear more from the wealthy and well-connected,” Pallone said. Republicans proposed “rules that are identical” to the ones the then-majority Commerce Democrats wrote for the last Congress, said committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash. “I don’t think it’s fair to burden the majority with requirements that the Democrats chose not to impose upon themselves” when they were in the majority. Rodgers said she will “do my very best to follow the House rules,” including urging House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., to grant requests to allow remote witness testimony. House Commerce approved committee rules by voice vote.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation tried to “set the record straight” Tuesday about FCC nominee Gigi Sohn’s role as a board member in the group’s decisions, after what it called “outlandish headlines” aimed at twisting “EFF's long-held positions and commitments into dog whistles against” the embattled nominee (see 2301300025). Those reports centered on the group’s opposition to the 2018 Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act and Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (see 1806290044) and its 2020 award to OnlyFans-affiliated sex worker Danielle Blunt, known professionally as Mistress Blunt. EFF acknowledged Blunt is “a professional dominatrix” and “a leader in the technology policy space and advocate for sex workers” but said “no one is more aware of the way that the power imbalances of the real world permeate online, and is more poised to act, than she is.” The group said its “opposition to FOSTA-SESTA was and remains based on the facts: It will not stop sex trafficking and will instead make stopping it harder. At the same time, the law puts a wide range of online expression at risk and we are always, unapologetically, against the criminalization and chilling of legal speech.” The “flurry of hyperbole and personal attacks should not be allowed to deflect attention from” Sohn being “one of the most qualified people possible for the role of FCC commissioner,” EFF said: “She has been a fair and balanced advocate for public interest for her entire career,” which “is why we were happy to add her to our board -- a role from which she will step down if she is appointed -- and why we would be thrilled to see her confirmed to the FCC.”

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew will testify March 23 before the House Commerce Committee, Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., announced Monday. The Chinese-owned social media company “knowingly allowed the ability for the Chinese Communist Party to access American user data,” and “Americans deserve to know how these actions impact their privacy and data security, as well as what actions TikTok is taking to keep our kids safe from online and offline harms,” she said. The company didn't comment.

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., will chair the House Antitrust Subcommittee in the 118th Congress, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, announced Friday. Massie replaces Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., as top Republican on the subcommittee. Buck, who remains a member of the Judiciary Committee, helped lead several pieces of bipartisan antitrust legislation in the 117th Congress. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., will chair the House Intellectual Property Subcommittee, and Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., the House Federal Government Surveillance Subcommittee, Jordan announced.

The House Communications Subcommittee plans a Feb. 2 hearing on U.S. satellite policy, said Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., and Communications Chairman Bob Latta, R-Ohio, Thursday. “Next-generation satellite technologies are revolutionizing the communications marketplace,” they said: “Yet many of our nation’s laws and regulations haven’t been updated in decades. Given the growth and innovation in this sector, we must ensure the U.S. is keeping pace with this rapidly evolving industry.” Rodgers and House Commerce ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., filed the Satellite and Telecommunications Streamlining Act and Secure Space Act in December in a bid to revamp the FCC’s satellite licensing rules. STSA would revamp the FCC's low-earth orbit satellite licensing rules by requiring the commission to issue “specific performance requirements” for satellite licensees to meet on space safety and orbital debris. SSA would bar the FCC from granting satellite licenses to any entity the FCC deems a national security risk under the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act (see 2212090064). The hearing will begin at 10:30 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn.

Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Communications Subcommittee ranking member John Thune, R-S.D., sharply criticized the FCC’s handling of the affordable connectivity program, after the GAO reported its goals and measures "lack specificity and clearly defined targets, raising questions about how effective” the commission’s oversight of the program is. “The results of GAO’s findings reveal that the FCC’s ACP is subject to massive waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars,” Cruz and Thune said Wednesday: “We find it incredibly concerning that the FCC has failed to establish a process that regularly assesses fraud risks within the ACP. It is incumbent upon” Senate Commerce “to have an oversight hearing to address GAO’s report and hold the FCC accountable to American taxpayers.” Thune launched a review of all federal broadband funding programs in December in a bid to hold executive branch agencies accountable for their disbursal of money from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and other measures (see 2212060067)."We appreciate GAO’s recommendations and are committed to further improving our performance goals and monitoring for risks within the program," an FCC spokesperson emailed Wednesday in response to GAO's recommendations. “The success of" ACP, "which currently helps over 15.7 million eligible households afford high-quality broadband service, continues to be a top priority for the Commission," the spokesperson said.

Republican legislation introduced Wednesday would prohibit TikTok from being downloaded on U.S. devices and ban commercial activity with parent company ByteDance. Introduced by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., the No TikTok on United States Devices Act would direct the president to use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act “within 30 days to block and prohibit transactions” with ByteDance.

Release of membership rosters for the Senate Commerce Committee and other chamber panels is on hold until the chamber reaches a deal on an organizing resolution that would set up committee ratios, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told reporters Tuesday. Senate Commerce had expected to receive its member assignments Monday (see 2301200058), aides told us. The Senate GOP caucus is delaying its backing for the organizing resolution while it sorts through a dispute about whether to issue a waiver allowing both senators from the same state to serve on the same committee, Durbin said. Incoming Commerce ranking member Ted Cruz of Texas, meanwhile, said he hired top GOP staff. Cruz named three top Senate Commerce GOP staff. Former Senate Banking Committee GOP Staff Director Brad Grantz and panel GOP Chief Counsel Dan Sullivan will fill the same roles on Commerce, Cruz said. He also picked former House Freedom Caucus Communications Director Melissa Braid to be Senate Commerce GOP communications director.