The House Privacy Working Group postponed its Tuesday meeting, which FTC Commissioners Julie Brill and Maureen Ohlhausen were scheduled to attend, said a spokesman for Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. Blackburn chairs the panel with Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt. (CD Oct 3 p10). Welch and several of his Democratic colleagues were invited to attend a White House briefing, the spokesman said, causing the meeting’s delay. The commissioners were planning to discuss the FTC’s statutory authority on privacy and possible data security legislation (CD Jan 14 p16). There’s no timetable for the meeting to be rescheduled, according to the spokesman.

The Senate Commerce Committee approved the renomination of Terrell McSweeny to fill the one remaining FTC commissioner vacancy, the committee said in a statement. The committee originally approved McSweeny’s nomination in November (CD Nov 14 p17), but had to reconsider her because of the beginning of a new session of Congress. McSweeny was originally nominated in June (CD June 24 p12), but the nomination of the current chief counsel for competition policy and intergovernmental relations for the Justice Department never reached a full floor vote

Missouri groups pushed back against the Lifeline program criticisms of Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. On Tuesday, a news release from the groups included a letter (http://bit.ly/1alJdum) they had sent Dec. 20 to the senator. McCaskill has attacked the program for months for its alleged waste, fraud and abuse. The 11 groups “are very concerned” about McCaskill’s calls to end the program, they said. Signatories include the Missouri Alliance for Retired Americans, the Consumer Council of Missouri and the Missouri Association for Social Welfare. They ask to discuss the program and for McCaskill to consider updates to the rules involving same-day handset distribution.

Former FCC Chairman Michael Copps joins the list of former FCC chairmen set to testify before Congress this week, a Common Cause spokeswoman confirmed Monday. Copps is special adviser for Common Cause’s Media and Democracy Reform Initiative. A committee aide to the House Communications Subcommittee also confirmed Copps will testify Wednesday at the 10 a.m. hearing in 2123 Rayburn on updating the Communications Act. The three witnesses revealed last week are former FCC chairmen Dick Wiley, Michael Powell and Reed Hundt. Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld had initially worried when hearing the witness list might consist only of Wiley, Hundt and Powell as well as, according to industry officials, Julius Genachowski. Feld suggested to us that other chairmen such as Copps would be important for balance (CD Jan 10 p10). The GOP memo for the hearing focused on the biographies of the witnesses. They “will provide unique insight into the workings of the expert agency and the challenges of implementing the Act as amended at very different times in the agency’s past,” the memo said (http://1.usa.gov/1djPbQy). “The perspectives of chairmen who served during a range of time periods and technological developments can inform potential legislation and address pitfalls that have been encountered in the past. It is vital that any changes to the law account for the impact on consumers and industry alike, and one starting point will be a conversation with those who were directly responsible for implementing the provisions of the law as written.”

Several key telecom trade associations united before Congress to back the reinstatement of the bonus depreciation provision of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012. In a Monday letter to Senate and House leaders of both parties, the executives leading USTelecom, CTIA, NCTA, NTCA—The Rural Broadband Association, The Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance, the Telecommunications Industry Association and PCIA-The Wireless Infrastructure Association told Congress they support efforts to comprehensively update the corporate tax code, but “we believe that the business certainty needed for sustained domestic job growth during the nation’s economic recovery requires renewal for 2014 of the bonus depreciation provision,” which expired Dec. 31. Any overhaul of the tax code would -- “it appears increasingly possible” -- not potentially take effect until Jan. 1, 2015, they said. Until a tax overhaul is effective, “extending bonus depreciation is essential to maintaining the nation’s economic momentum,” they said (http://bit.ly/1djGIgh). “In order to plan with certainty, companies must know as soon as possible what the tax rules for capital investment and job creation in America will be in 2014.” The bonus depreciation provision allowed businesses making domestic investments to “receive substantial tax benefits,” according to USTelecom’s press release. That benefit, as part of the 2012 act, amounts to 50-percent bonus depreciation for such investment. Some observers have argued the provision should stay expired. “Bonus depreciation is costly, particularly if policymakers make it permanent,” Chuck Marr, director of federal tax policy at the nonprofit Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, wrote in a blog post Monday (http://bit.ly/KVZtvn). “While a one-year extension would cost about $5 billion, the ten-year cost of a permanent extension would be about $280 billion.” He said the provision was intended as temporary, dating back to the economic recession of 2008, and criticized it for “low bang for the buck."

The House Cybersecurity Subcommittee will mark up the National Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructure Protection Act (HR-3696) Wednesday. The bill would codify the Department of Homeland Security’s existing public-private collaboration on cybersecurity, but would not give the agency new powers. It would also allow new liability protections for companies that deploy anti-terrorism technology to also deploy cybersecurity tech. Industry experts see the bill as one of the best chances for Congress to pass legislation this year related to cybersecurity (CD Jan 6 p2). The markup is to begin at 2 p.m. in 311 Cannon.

Witnesses for Thursday’s Senate Communications Subcommittee hearing on 911 wireless location accuracy are: Trey Forgety, director of government affairs for the National Emergency Number Association; CTIA Executive Vice President Chris Guttman-McCabe; APCO International President Gigi Smith; Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Executive Director Claude Stout; and Qualcomm Senior Director-Technology Kirk Burroughs. The hearing is at 10:30 a.m. in 253 Russell. In September, subcommittee Chairman Mark Pryor, D-Ark., had joined three other senators in signing a letter pressing the FCC on wireless 911 location accuracy.

Witnesses for a Tuesday House Intellectual Property Subcommittee hearing on copyright, including broadcast copyright protections, are David Nimmer, counsel at Irell & Manella; Glynn Lunney, a professor at Tulane University Law School; Mark Schultz, professor at Southern Illinois University School of Law; James Love, director of Knowledge Ecology International; Patricia Griffin, general counsel for the American National Standards Institute; and Carl Malamud, president of Public.Resource.Org. The hearing is called “The Scope of Copyright Protection” and will take place at 10 a.m. in 2141 Rayburn.

The Senate Communications Subcommittee will hold a hearing Thursday on wireless 911 location accuracy, it said in a notice Friday. The hearing will be at 10:30 a.m. in 253 Russell. “The Subcommittee will focus on the unique location accuracy issues associated with calling 911 from wireless phones,” it said. The hearing’s title is “Locating 911 Callers in a Wireless World.” Witnesses have not yet been announced.

A member of the House Intelligence Committee plans to introduce what he calls the Telephone Metadata Reform Act. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., circulated a letter to colleagues Thursday looking for co-sponsors. The bill “would restructure the telephone metadata program by specifically removing call records from the types of records the Government can obtain under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act,” Schiff told fellow members. “Instead, records would be obtained on a case by case basis from the telephone companies subject to approval by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.” Schiff said the proposal “mirrors” one of the 46 recommendations of the White House’s surveillance review group, which released its report last month. The question of where metadata should be stored was an especially contested recommendation following the report’s release. “This alternative structure of the telephony metadata program could accomplish the same goals as the current program while reducing the imposition on privacy rights of Americans,” Schiff said. He said the bill wouldn’t impose any new burdens on phone companies in retaining their records. Schiff doesn’t believe there will be too many serious costs associated with phone companies holding the metadata, said an aide, noting the proposed bill doesn’t mandate phone companies save data. The aide told us he suspects there will be some startup costs likely to be defrayed with government assistance. Although there are many data points, they are individually quite small and very cheap to store, the aide said. Under the terms of the proposed bill, any telecom provider can choose not to save the metadata if it is a burden, he said.