Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and House Commerce Committee ranking member Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., urged NTIA Friday to encourage streamlining of permitting processes for recipients of money from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act’s $42.5 billion broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program. “With inflation already raising costs, we cannot afford to waste time and resources on needless bureaucracy when we should be building networks,” the GOP leaders said in a letter to NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson. “Without action, we worry that deployments will take longer and be more expensive, leaving more Americans on the wrong side of the digital divide.” NTIA should “require states and territories to work with their local governments to streamline permitting processes to expedite and reduce barriers to deployment,” Rodgers and Wicker said: “We are encouraged” that BEAD’s notice of funding opportunity (see 2205130054) “asks states to identify steps to reduce deployment barriers, including streamlined permitting processes, and encourages state and territorial governments to expedite permitting timelines," but “merely encouraging and promoting these actions … is not enough.” NTIA should “require states and territories to work with local governments to adopt streamlining policies that reduce the burdens associated with obtaining permits,” the lawmakers said. The agency “should also set a high bar for the ‘other critical policy goals’ that states and localities can use to justify burdensome permitting regulations so that the exception does not become the rule.”

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., and Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., led filing Thursday of the Broadband Grant Tax Treatment Act, in a bid to ensure broadband funding from the Infrastructure Investment Jobs Act and American Rescue Plan Act doesn’t count as taxable income. The measure would amend the Internal Revenue Code to say broadband grants enacted via either statute don’t count as “gross income.” Every “dollar that was set aside to fund broadband expansion and deployment should be used for that purpose,” Warner said: “Taxing these broadband investments awards would be counter-productive, and could ultimately diminish efforts to give more Americans access to high-speed internet.” Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Roger Wicker, R-Miss., is among four other senators who signed on as original co-sponsors. “Taxing broadband grants … will dramatically reduce the impact of these programs and likely leave the hardest-to-reach communities without essential connectivity for even longer,” said NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield. “It is critical that all broadband grant funds go toward their intended purpose of network deployment.” Requiring “grant recipients to return as much as 20 percent of those grants in the form of taxes jeopardizes our shared goal of universal connectivity,” said USTelecom Senior Vice President-Government Affairs Brandon Heiner. “It is vital that Congress move to eliminate this tax, as America’s broadband providers carefully plan and prepare to allocate resources to connect as many Americans as possible." Warner’s office also cited support from WTA.

The Senate voted 72-25 Thursday to pass the continuing resolution to extend federal appropriations and renew the FCC’s spectrum auction authority through Dec. 16 (HR-6833), as expected (see 2209280064). The House was expected to vote on the measure Friday. President Joe Biden plans to sign it.

The House voted 242-184 Thursday to pass the Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act (HR-3843) (see 2209260060). It initially passed by voice vote, but House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, called for an official count. The bill raises fees for larger transactions and lowers the fee for small and medium deals, ensuring the FTC and DOJ receive fair compensation for their merger reviews, said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., on the floor Thursday. Jordan said the estimated $140 million annually for each agency will result in more unnecessary government bureaucracy and politically driven harassment. Public Knowledge welcomed the vote. “For many years, antitrust enforcers feared that Congress would cut their funding if they did too much to protect consumers and promote a healthy marketplace,” said Competition Policy Director Charlotte Slaiman. “Now Congress speaks clearly on antitrust: The strategy of underenforcement is over.”

The Senate could "finish its work" as soon as Thursday on a continuing resolution that would extend federal funding through Dec. 16 and renew the FCC's spectrum auction authority to the same date (see 2209270071), Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a Wednesday floor speech. The chamber invoked cloture Tuesday on a motion to proceed to the CR with a 72-23 vote. An expedited Senate vote will depend on '"cooperation from our Republican colleagues" to shorten floor debate, said Schumer, who filed the CR as an amendment to shell bill HR-6833.

A continuing resolution to extend federal appropriations past Friday that Senate Democratic leaders bowed Monday includes a renewal of the FCC’s spectrum auction authority through Dec. 16, as expected (see 2209210076). Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., filed the CR as an amendment to shell bill HR-6833. The chamber was to vote Tuesday night on invoking cloture on the motion to proceed to the proposed CR amid questions about whether it would get support from 60 senators needed to clear that threshold. Former FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly hailed the breakthrough as “good news.” Now “policymakers can take requisite time, usually up to a year or more, to build a long awaited spectrum pipeline law,” he tweeted Tuesday. “While it's not enough long term, it at least kicks the can and avoids a lapse in authority,” tweeted R Street Institute Technology & Innovation Policy Counsel Jonathan Cannon.

The House expects to vote this week on a series of bipartisan antitrust bills with implications for the tech industry, House Antitrust Subcommittee ranking member Ken Buck, R-Colo., said Monday. Votes are expected on the Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act (see 2106250062), the State Antitrust Enforcement Venue Act (see 2202090066) and the Foreign Merger Subsidy Disclosure Act. The merger filing bill would increase fees for larger companies to enhance resources for enforcers. The venue bill would give state attorneys general more discretion over where they litigate cases, and the third bill would require merger filing disclosures of subsidies from countries like China.

House GOP leaders formally unveiled their “Commitment to America” midterm election policy platform Friday at an event in Monongahela, Pennsylvania, but the plan’s proposals for reining in Big Tech didn’t get mention from party leaders. The proposal calls for “greater privacy and data security protections for Americans,” supplying “parents with more tools to keep their kids safe online” and preventing “companies from putting politics ahead of people.” Big Tech “has tipped the scales to silence and censor those with conservative viewpoints,” the House GOP’s plan said: “Worse than crystalizing [sic] an ideological echo chamber, these apps have proven to be incredibly addictive for children with potentially devastating consequences.” House Commerce Committee ranking member Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., who would likely become panel chair if the GOP wins control of the chamber in the November election, later talked about the tech proposal during a Fox Business Channel appearance. She cited interest in revisiting Communications Decency Act Section 230, noting major social media companies have been more interested in “censoring conservative speech online” than stopping “criminal activity” committed via their platforms. “I’m sending letters to many of the big tech companies like TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram and telling them they need to do more to stop the fentanyl sales that are killing our children,” Rodgers said. She earlier this month cited instances in which young people have had access to drugs, often laced with fentanyl, using Snapchat (see 2209150061).

Congress “must find common ground” on extending the FCC’s spectrum auction authority past its current Sept. 30 expiration, even if it’s for a short period, former FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly said Thursday in an InsideSources opinion piece. “To do otherwise would set a horrible precedent, setting back wireless communications policy at precisely the wrong moment.” Lawmakers appear to be nearing a deal to temporarily renew the FCC’s authority through Dec. 16 as part of a pending continuing resolution to extend federal appropriations (see 2209210076). The Senate plans an initial vote at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to CR shell bill HR-6833 (see 2209220087). “Extending auction authority must have balanced expectations and a modicum of innate responsibility,” O’Rielly said: “To get more commercial wireless spectrum into the market, all affected parties must come to the table ready to deal.” Getting “an extended commercial spectrum pipeline, which is critical, will likely take longer than a few months to hammer out,” he said: “Experience tells us that it will be a long process that could take the better part of a year and only occurs with the inclusion of a firm deadline in law and corresponding watchful eyes by the respective congressional telecom leaders.”

The Senate voted Thursday to confirm Amanda Bennett as U.S. Agency for Global Media CEO and Arati Prabhakar as White House Office of Science and Technology Policy director. The chamber approved Bennett 60-36, with 12 Republicans in support. Senators voted 56-40 for Prabhakar, with 10 Republicans backing him. The chamber voted 60-37 Wednesday to invoke cloture on Bennett and 58-38 for cloture on Prabhakar (see 2209210043). Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., in a floor speech supporting Prabhakar noted the recent enactment of the Chips and Science Act (see 2208090062). The Chips and Science Act represents “a renewed commitment to domestic semiconductor research and manufacturing U.S. leadership in the next-generation chips technology,” Cantwell said: Prabhakar “has the exact experience we need to advise” President Joe Biden “on semiconductor manufacturing, on bringing the supply chain security that we need” in the U.S. “and on continued growth in science and technology jobs that come along with it.” OSTP strategies can help “our nation attract and keep the best and brightest and prioritize collaboration between academia and industry,” Cantwell said. The “partnership between the existing workforce and the workforce of tomorrow needs to grow. This is such a big important issue for us today” and Prabhakar “will help deliver a message that young women all across America need to be involved in the sciences to help our nation in the next phases of innovation.” USAGM hailed Bennett’s confirmation. She “has both the vision and experience to build on our progress, while equipping USAGM to anticipate and confront threats to independent media and reach audiences in need,” said acting CEO Kelu Chao: “This bipartisan confirmation underscores just how critical it is to Congress and our stakeholders alike that USAGM continue to deliver on its important mission. Now more than ever, people across the world are depending on USAGM’s fact-based news to triumph over increasing misinformation, disinformation, and censorship.”