FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler pledged to modernize the E-rate program, in a letter responding to a bipartisan group of House lawmakers, many belonging to the New Democrat Coalition. “I agree with each of the recommendations in your letter and hope to soon be able to adopt an Order beginning the process of E-rate modernization consistent with the approach you have outlined,” Wheeler said in a response received Tuesday, expressing concern over timing and wanting an order adopted in summer to ensure funding for the coming year. He is “especially concerned” about lack of robust Wi-Fi in schools and libraries and wants funding allocated for that, he said. “According to internal staff estimates, allocating an additional $1 billion to Wi-Fi next year without updated program rules will allow us to reach fewer than 4 million students, mostly in urban areas,” Wheeler said. “With modernized rules for internal connections, however, E-Rate could help over 10 million students connect to Wi-Fi in their classrooms, including many in rural areas.” The FCC has $1 billion committed for 2014, with more than $700 million slated for broadband-related funding, Wheeler said.

Asian Americans Advancing Justice emphasized in a letter to House Communications Subcommittee leaders the importance of media diversity. The letter was dated June 10 and posted this week by the FCC, which had also received a copy. “Ensuring a diverse media landscape is especially important for Asian Americans to access information that is culturally and linguistically relevant -- including lifesaving emergency information -- because approximately one-third of Asian Americans are limited-English proficient,” the group said (http://bit.ly/UGhgMP). It backs the FCC’s “efforts to enforce its media ownership rules,” it added.

Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., has included net neutrality among his Senate campaign priorities, featured prominently on his campaign homepage. He is running for re-election this November, a seat the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report deems safely Democratic. Net neutrality has featured in other Senate campaigns, such as that of Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn. (CD June 4 p5 ). Booker’s campaign website highlights net neutrality in two separate pages, one allowing people to “tell the FCC: No Internet ‘fast lanes.'” The website argued the FCC has changed its policies: “In the past, the FCC has agreed that Internet ‘fast lanes’ like those currently under consideration would threaten net neutrality,” the Booker campaign website said in a sample letter to the agency (http://bit.ly/1jujvIc). “This proposed rule change would likely result in higher consumer costs and decreased private sector innovation.” The FCC has defended its net neutrality rulemaking as merely asking questions and disputed assertions it’s pushing to allow for any such Internet fast lanes. Another Booker campaign webpage asked for voter feedback on the issue. “Do you agree with the principles of Net Neutrality?” the Booker campaign asked, allowing people to select yes or no (http://bit.ly/T1ns0l). “Are you a small business owner who relies on Net Neutrality?”

The House Judiciary Committee will mark up the Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act, HR-3086, at 10 a.m. Wednesday in 2141 Rayburn, said a committee news release (http://1.usa.gov/1kHa87B) Monday. House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., is the bill’s lead co-sponsor (CD Sept 13 p18). The legislation has another 213 House co-sponsors. The bill would “make permanent the ban on state and local taxation of Internet access and on multiple or discriminatory taxes on electronic commerce,” according to a Congressional Research Service summary (http://1.usa.gov/1q5cbrJ). “NetChoice absolutely supports a permanent ITFA, and not just to prevent new taxes on every smartphone and household internet access bill,” said Executive Director Steve DelBianco by email. The bill “also prohibits discriminatory taxes on our online activities, like a tax on free email or video streaming,” he said. HR-3086 “would at the very least prevent targeted taxes on Internet access, and disproportionate sales or other taxes on e-commerce,” said Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) President Grover Norquist and ATR Digital Liberty project Executive Director Katie McAuliffe in a letter (http://bit.ly/1q5nlN9) Monday urging the bill’s passage. The letter was sent to Goodlatte, House Judiciary Committee ranking member John Conyers, D-Mich., House Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., and House Commerce Committee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif.

CEA hailed Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., for introducing the Wireless Innovation Act (http://1.usa.gov/1p1SEa4) as a “forward-looking approach” that will help ensure “our commercial spectrum supply can meet consumer demand.” S-2473 would reallocate 200 MHz of government spectrum for commercial use (CD June 12 p15). “Federal regulation and policies governing the allocation of spectrum must reflect our current, widespread use of this invaluable resource,” said CEA President Gary Shapiro in a news release Thursday (http://bit.ly/1vazLFQ). “By reallocating government spectrum for commercial use, establishing an auction pipeline with deadlines and incentivizing federal agencies to reallocate spectrum, this legislation works to advance a 21st-century spectrum policy that helps us find new ways to meet our ever-growing demand for wireless access.” CTIA and PCIA are among other groups that also have hailed the bill’s introduction.

The House Judiciary Antirust Subcommittee plans a net neutrality hearing Friday at 9 a.m. in 2141 Rayburn, as expected (CD June 11 p16), said the committee in a news release. It said Friday that witnesses will include Robert McDowell, a former Republican FCC commissioner and now visiting fellow with the Hudson Institute; Bruce Owen, a senior fellow with the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research; FTC Commissioner Joshua Wright; and Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia Law School.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., filed cloture Thursday on the motion to proceed to consider the Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2015 (HR-4660). That House version of the legislation became embroiled in various debates over Internet governance and reduced funding to NTIA, given concerns from House Republicans (CD June 2 p8). The item is expected to be considered this week, with the Senate back in session Monday.

Comments began coming in to Congress Friday on competition policy. House Republicans asked stakeholders to weigh in by that deadline, in a white paper issued last month as part of their effort to overhaul the Communications Act. The committee hasn’t publicly released any comments, but some stakeholders made theirs available. Competition “should be based on the existence of market power, not tied to the use of a particular technology, protocol, business model, or class of service provider,” Sprint told Congress. One key principle is “nondiscriminatory interconnection and access to bottleneck facilities at just and reasonable rates, terms and conditions,” Sprint said. “The current regulatory paradigm” of the act “has significant value” for small- to mid-sized cable companies, despite regular review and revision required of the 1992 Cable Act, said the American Cable Association. “The Commission needs to consider the aggregate effect of its regulations, which can inhibit competition, on small firms.” ACA warned against reclassifying broadband as a Title II telecom service and the uncertainty that would cause. Broadband for America also slammed that possibility and warned against regulations designed for monopoly (http://bit.ly/1qc4hiC). The Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance urged Congress to be careful in considering what competition really is, suggesting it shouldn’t be based on number of service providers alone. Take into account level and quality of service, it recommended. The FCC needs to account for “facilities-based, cross-platform intermodal competition, enabled by the rise of digital and Internet Protocol-based services,” said the Free State Foundation (http://bit.ly/1sciwFW), calling for the end of the “indeterminate” public interest standard. There should be “carefully delineated authority to address interconnection practices that might pose significant consumer harm if the agency finds that marketplace competition is not adequately protecting consumers,” Free State said of a potential exception.

The Competitive Carriers Association late Wednesday praised Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., for laying out plans earlier in the day for spectrum legislation (CD June 12 p15). “I completely agree that we must find ways to free up as much spectrum as possible by working collaboratively with federal users to support competitive carriers, and we must maximize the use of this limited resource,” CCA President Steve Berry said. “Having a pipeline of future spectrum auctions will only help open up secondary markets for competitive carriers and will provide additional opportunities for carriers to gain access to this much needed resource.” CTIA and PCIA also backed Rubio’s agenda.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said Thursday he’s “extremely optimistic” that the Senate will pass its own long-delayed version of cybersecurity information sharing legislation this year. The Senate Intelligence Committee is now finalizing its information sharing bill, named in a discussion draft as the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, which tracks with many aspects of the House-passed Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (HR-624). Rogers said at an American Enterprise Institute event that he met with Senate Intelligence leaders Wednesday. “That was one of the most productive meetings I thought we had this year on this issue,” he said. “I am very, very encouraged by this meeting yesterday.” Former NSA Director Keith Alexander said Congress needs to pass cybersecurity legislation that improves information sharing between the government and private sector. That legislation should also include liability protections for companies acting on government-supplied information, Alexander said. “We need to push that through,” he said.