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."

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.

FirstNet’s partnerships with the private sector and how it plans to develop the network in each state may hold “particular interest” for members of Congress, said a Congressional Research Service report released Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1ajGyEM). Those details may be an “early indicator of the viability of FirstNet in meeting the goals required by” the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012, which created the interoperable public-safety network, it said. By CRS telecom policy specialist Linda Moore, the report laid out the broad goals of the network, different deadlines and the technical and funding challenges it will have to meet. “In addition to monitoring progress in building the new broadband network for public safety, Congress may want to consider reviewing the role of commercial networks in emergency response and recovery,” it said. “Once commercial communications lines are compromised because of infrastructure failures, interdependent public safety networks are threatened and the ability to communicate vital information to the public is diminished.” NTIA has asserted powers as a supervising government agency, and FirstNet has been required to follow federal procurement rules in a way inconsistent with the intent of Congress, “and might be described as setting a course for FirstNet to become ‘another Amtrak,'” said CRS.

President Barack Obama discussed surveillance concerns with key members of Congress in the Roosevelt Room of the White House Thursday, according to the White House schedule. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., issued a statement after the meeting reiterating his backing of more transparency. “In particular, if the President believes we need a bulk collection program of telephone data, then he needs to break his silence and clearly explain to the American people why it is needed for our national security,” Goodlatte said. “The President has unique information about the merits of these programs and the extent of their usefulness,” information “critical to informing Congress on how far to go in reforming the programs” and with civil liberties at stake. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., pointed to his own surveillance bill. “During today’s meeting, I and several others emphasized the need for meaningful changes to our government’s surveillance programs, like those outlined in the USA FREEDOM Act,” Leahy said in a statement, referring to his bill that would end bulk phone surveillance. “Minor or cosmetic changes simply will not restore Americans’ confidence.” Leahy said the recommendations of Obama’s surveillance review group are consistent with the USA Freedom Act. Leahy said Obama can enact many of these recommendations now, although Leahy will still “push for support” of his own legislation in the Senate. Goodlatte said he also wants to make sure tech companies are not disadvantaged in relation to their foreign competitors. House Judiciary has “primary jurisdiction over the legal framework of these programs,” Goodlatte said. Press aides for Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and House Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., were not yet prepared or planning to issue statements about the meeting, they told us Thursday afternoon. The White House, in its readout, confirmed the attendance of the above four lawmakers as well as Senate Intelligence Vice Chairman Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., Senate Judiciary ranking member Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Thad Cochran, R-Miss., Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Mark Udall, D-Colo., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., House Judiciary ranking member John Conyers, D-Mich., Reps. Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-N.J., Peter Visclosky, D-Ind., Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis. Sensenbrenner authored the House version of the USA Freedom Act, now under consideration in House Judiciary. “This meeting was an opportunity for the President to hear from the Members about the work they have been doing on these issues since they last met and solicit their input as we near the end of our internal review,” the White House said. Obama is expected to announce changes to surveillance practices later this month. “All three branches of government have said the NSA has gone too far,” Sensenbrenner said in a statement. “This problem cannot be solved by presidential fiat. Congress needs to pass the USA FREEDOM Act, a bipartisan legislative solution closely aligned with the suggestions by the president’s panel.”

Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld sees as wanting the list of former FCC chairmen set to testify before Congress next week. The House Communications Subcommittee scheduled its previously announced Jan. 15 hearing on Communications Act overhaul for 10 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn, it said in a hearing notice Wednesday night (http://1.usa.gov/1ild2QW). The subcommittee has not announced witnesses but said those testifying will be former FCC chairmen. Industry officials have told us these will be Julius Genachowski, Michael Powell, Reed Hundt and Dick Wiley (CD Jan 9 p6). A committee aide confirmed to us on Thursday that Powell, Hundt and Wiley will be testifying. “Of this list, the only one who doesn’t represent carriers or possibly seek to acquire them is Reed Hundt,” Feld told us by email of the initial four rumored names. “They couldn’t ask Kevin Martin or Michael Copps? Hell, if there was ever an FCC Chair that made cable market power and retrans (as well as TV white spaces) on the agenda, it’s Kevin Martin. And Copps would provide a truly unique and powerful voice for media diversity and network neutrality.” Feld worried about the balance of such a witness list and said none of these former chairmen would be able to speak to media diversity. Martin’s “campaign against cable” would have provided a key balance to Powell heading NCTA, Feld added. Feld also pointed to Copps and Martin as the only two former chairmen who back indecency rules. While Feld personally favors a repeal of the broadcast indecency rule, he said “we should have a real debate with ardent defenders as well as those favoring repeal.” House Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., wrote a joint guest blog Thursday for Broadcasting & Cable describing their desire to update the act and pegging that to the innovation on display at CES. “Our work will be exhaustive, inviting industries and innovators, consumers and citizens to join us in an open dialogue,” Upton and Walden said (http://bit.ly/K8l6bm). “The committee’s examination of the satellite television law, for instance, has reminded us that more nuanced laws governing different forms of communication are woefully out of sync with each other.”

One House Republican sees no real danger in AT&T’s latest sponsored data program. “I understand the concerns that folks raise regarding agreements between content providers and wireless broadband carriers,” Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., told us in a statement. “But this is the kind of deal that I think has the potential to bring new and innovative options for consumers, and to which net neutrality poses a threat. Wireless and landline data usage has skyrocketed in recent years, and I think we should be encouraging creative business deals to help meet this demand, not preventing them.” Terry is a member of the House Commerce Committee, where he chairs the trade subcommittee. He had opposed the FCC’s move to vote on net neutrality rules in 2010. Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., had worried AT&T’s program created net neutrality concerns (CD Jan 9 p8). FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler discussed the new program, on the road. (See separate reports above in this issue.)

A House panel will take a closer look at copyright Tuesday, focusing on broadcast protections. The House Intellectual Property Subcommittee will hold a hearing titled “The Scope of Copyright Protection” Tuesday at 10 a.m. in 2141 Rayburn. It “will focus on the general issues of what is subject to copyright protection and what rights should be included in copyright protection,” a House Judiciary Committee aide said. “The hearing will also look at the specific new topics of whether and to what extent there should be copyright protection for broadcasts and laws, codes and standards.” Some of these questions have been at the heart of the ongoing Aereo case. No witnesses were disclosed.

The USA Freedom Act (HR-3361) picked up four House co-sponsors Tuesday, bringing the surveillance legislation authored by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., up to 121 backers. The bill would end the government’s bulk collection of phone metadata, create an advocate for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and make other changes. New co-sponsors are Reps. Paul Broun, R-Ga., vice chairman of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence and chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight; Doris Matsui, D-Calif.; William Keating, D-Mass., a member of the House Homeland Security Cybersecurity Subcommittee and Counterterrorism and Intelligence Subcommittee; and Randy Weber, R-Texas.