The House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee plans to do “a detailed examination of the proposed merger between the nation’s two largest cable companies,” said Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., committee ranking member John Conyers, D-Mich., and subcommittee ranking member Hank Johnson, D-Ga., in a joint statement Monday. “We look forward to an even-handed and robust discussion on the proposed Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger from our distinguished witnesses on Thursday. The hearing will provide an opportunity for Members to ask questions about the proposed merger and a public forum to explore effects on competition in the video and broadband markets that may impact consumers.” The oversight hearing of Comcast’s buy of Time Warner Cable is at 9:30 a.m. Thursday in 2141 Rayburn.

Top officials from the American Cable Association and Cogent Communications are slated to weigh in before Congress on Comcast’s proposed purchase of Time Warner Cable. The House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee is holding an oversight hearing on the deal Thursday at 9:30 a.m. in 2141 Rayburn. Witnesses include Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen and Time Warner Cable CEO Robert Marcus, defenders of the deal, which requires FCC and Justice Department approval. Also testifying are ACA President Matthew Polka and Cogent CEO David Schaeffer as well as Patrick Gottsch, chairman of the Rural Media Group; Allen Grunes, an antitrust attorney at GeyerGorey who worked at the Justice Department Antitrust Division for upwards of a decade; C. Scott Hemphill, a Columbia Law School professor and former New York attorney general’s office antitrust bureau chief who has studied how antitrust law influences the competition and innovation balance; and Craig Labovitz, CEO of DeepField Networks.

Center for Boundless Innovation in Technology Executive Director Fred Campbell attacked multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD) attempts to turn the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act reauthorization process into a vehicle for a video market overhaul. He released a white paper on the issue Thursday (http://bit.ly/1i2tym9). It posited that the “ultimate goal of retransmission consent ‘reform’ is to kill free over-the-air television so that MVPDs can appropriate TV station advertising revenue for themselves.” Such overhaul should be debated as part of the Communications Act overhaul process, not “rushed” through the STELA process, he said. STELA expires at the end of the year unless Congress reauthorizes it. Campbell’s paper attacked several proposed pay-industry tweaks that have been brought up during the STELA debates. The “must carry” provisions don’t impact retrans negotiations, nor do TV stations have unfair bargaining power, Campbell contended. Retrans consent prices are not excessive, he said.

One Senate Democrat flagged the importance of rural high-speed broadband. Agriculture Subcommittee on Jobs, Rural Economic Growth and Energy Chairwoman Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., wants regional strategies in rural economic development to address the provision of high-speed Internet, she said in an opening statement (http://1.usa.gov/1o6Ea8O) at a hearing Thursday. “'Regional strategies’ may sound vague, but the main point is that they target resources to where they will have the most impact locally,” Heitkamp said. “It could mean working with multiple counties and state officials to install high-speed Internet services in homes in those areas to support a regional plan to attract food processing businesses to locate closer to the farm.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved by voice vote the nomination of Elisebeth Collins Cook to be a member of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, during an executive session Thursday. Cook has been one of the Republican members of the five-member board, which has offered several recommendations to the White House on phone surveillance and is putting together recommendations on Internet surveillance. She was formerly a Senate Judiciary Committee counsel and now counsel for WilmerHale. President Barack Obama re-nominated Cook in December and if approved by the full Senate her term would continue through 2020.

The Senate Judiciary Committee delayed its markup of the Patent Transparency and Improvements Act (S-1720) again Thursday, as industry stakeholders expected (CD May 1 p13). The committee had hoped to have a compromise manager’s amendment ready for markup earlier this week, but negotiations continued Thursday. Still, Senate Judiciary has “settled the vast majority of the issues in there, and I think by next week we can actually start marking up” the manager’s amendment, said committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., during a committee executive session. Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said he too believed they were continuing to make progress in negotiations and that he hoped they would be “bringing a bill to fruition shortly.” Industry stakeholders are continuing to push Senate Judiciary to mark up S-1720. More than 400 companies and groups, including many major communications and technology players signed a joint letter to Leahy and Grassley Wednesday urging their continued support for patent revamp legislation (http://bit.ly/1fC9HQ9).

The House Commerce Committee is eyeing May 8 for a markup of its Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act (STELA) reauthorization draft bill, Capitol Hill and industry sources told us. But multiple people on and off the Hill also said no deal has been reached between Democrats and Republicans, who were divided on the House draft bill’s language on the set-top box integration ban provision as well as the provision that would limit FCC actions on broadcaster sharing agreements until the agency completes its media ownership quadrennial review -- key points of tension when the draft bill advanced out of the Communications Subcommittee earlier this year. There’s no agreement on how to proceed, and many key staffers have been out of town for the NCTA Cable Show, one media industry lobbyist told us. One Hill aide pushed back against judging anything too soon, pointing to many floating rumors but nothing concrete nailed down yet. A second industry official also said he has heard May 8 as the markup day and predicts it will go relatively smoothly. The real hurdle is the language on sharing agreements but the integration ban provision is a settled issue, with no further back-and-forth happening now, that official said. Staffers don’t seem inclined to add any provisions into the draft at this point, the official added. A committee spokesman did not confirm or deny the accuracy of any committee agreement or disagreement on the draft or proposed dates for the markup. The House Judiciary Committee will hold two hearings at the subcommittee level that same day on video issues in 2141 Rayburn -- the first at 9:30 a.m. will be the Antitrust Subcommittee’s oversight hearing of Comcast’s proposed purchase of Time Warner Cable, and the second at 2 p.m. will be the IP Subcommittee’s hearing on compulsory video licenses of Copyright Act Title 17. That second hearing, which multiple officials framed as a STELA hearing, will include Marci Burdick testifying on behalf of NAB and a representative from Dish, one media lobbyist said.

The American TV Alliance pushed back against TVFreedom’s claims that public safety is a key part of why cable operators must carry broadcast stations, as has been lobbied for before Congress. TVFreedom, a coalition of broadcaster interests, had written a blog post for The Hill Tuesday (CD April 19 p19), and an ATVA spokesman, speaking for pay-TV industry interests, wrote one for the same outlet Wednesday. “Enough with the hyperbole,” the ATVA spokesman said (http://bit.ly/1kpHRnE). “Everyone supports public safety first and foremost. ... Cable and satellite TV providers are working with broadcasters to update the Emergency Alert System, which notifies the public of safety threats 24/7.” He attacked broadcasters on retransmission consent rules, which broadcasters have long defended. The fights have become wrapped up in the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act reauthorization process.

The Senate Judiciary Committee appears unlikely to have final language ready on a compromise manager’s amendment to the Patent Transparency and Improvements Act (S-1720) in time to mark up the bill Thursday, several industry observers told us Wednesday. Negotiations on the compromise language continued Wednesday, a Senate Judiciary aide told us. A markup of S-1720 remained on the agenda for the committee’s executive business meeting Thursday, which is to begin at 10 a.m. in 226 Dirksen. Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., had hoped to release the text of the manager’s amendment as soon as the Senate returned from recess Monday (CD April 29 p6). Work on the manager’s amendment has been complicated in part by the Supreme Court’s rulings Tuesday in two patent cases on the application of fee-shifting rules, two industry lobbyists told us. The two cases -- Highmark v. Allcare Health Management System and Octane Fitness v. ICON Fitness & Health -- collectively loosened fee-shifting rules, which patent revamp advocates said the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit was applying too stringently. The rulings drew praise from several patent revamp advocates, including the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) and the Internet Association. The rulings are a “bump in the road” because “they're in the same sandbox as the legislation,” said Cathy Sloan, CCIA vice president-government relations, in an interview. “As drafters of the legislation, you have to adjust for that. They're not big changes, but you can’t just pretend the new precedent isn’t there. You have to draft around it a little bit.”

The Senate Intelligence Committee confirmed it has been circulating a discussion draft of its long-awaited cybersecurity information sharing bill. Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and ranking member Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., said in joint statement Wednesday that they sent the draft “to relevant parties in the executive branch, private industry and the privacy community for comment. Once those comments are returned, which we hope will happen quickly, we will consider the final legislation.” The draft bill, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, is seen to closely resemble the House-passed Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (HR-624), but includes numerous additional privacy protections (CD April 30 p19).