Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., wants the Computer and Communications Industry Association to weigh in on Comcast’s proposed buy of Time Warner Cable. “Do you believe that Comcast’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable would harm the public interest?” Franken asked CCIA President Ed Black in a letter Wednesday (http://1.usa.gov/1kurRSY). “What impact will the deal have on competition in relevant markets, and, ultimately, on consumers? Finally, please provide any other relevant views, including any thoughts you have about arguments made in the Public Interest Statement that Comcast recently filed with the FCC or in the testimony that Comcast and Time Warner Cable recently provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee.” Franken opposes the deal, which Comcast has strongly defended as good for consumers. CCIA’s members “depend on broadband networks to operate,” Franken added.
Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., is worried about the FCC’s net neutrality proposal. “I write today to express my concerns that you may be stepping back from an earlier commitment to policies that ensure an open and free Internet for all Americans,” Nelson, a senior member of the Commerce Committee, told FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in a letter Wednesday. “I am very concerned about reports that the NPRM will presumptively allow ‘paid prioritization arrangements’ as long as they are ‘commercially reasonable.'” Allowing these deals “could upset the basic concept of an open Internet and would be very difficult to remedy at a later time,” Nelson said. The agency needs to “draw a brighter line” in this regard, Nelson insisted, despite acknowledging that Wheeler is trying to operate in parameters of a court ruling that struck down previous net neutrality rules. “As part of that analysis, I also urge the Commission to carefully consider whether section 706 provides the best pathway for these rules or whether Title II, with appropriate forbearance, provides a more sound approach.” Several public interest advocates have recommended the FCC reclassify broadband as a Communications Act Title II service, subject to more regulation. Several other Senate Democrats have voiced fears that these proposed rules are too weak, despite the FCC’s ardent defense of what they're doing and an insistence that this is a first step (CD April 30 p11). Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., bashed the FCC proposal Wednesday. “Reports that the FCC may gut net neutrality are disturbing, and would be just one more way the playing field is tilted for the rich and powerful who have already made it,” Warren said in a Facebook post (http://on.fb.me/1kiMEGc). “Our regulators already have all the tools they need to protect a free and open Internet -- where a handful of companies cannot block or filter or charge access fees for what we do online. They should stand up and use them.”
A House appropriations bill would slate $36.7 million for NTIA in FY2015, well below the $51 million the executive branch requested. The bill would allocate $8.35 billion for the Commerce Department, $95 million less than the White House requested but $71 million more than was enacted for FY2014. The House Appropriations Commerce, Justice and Science Subcommittee released the draft appropriations bill this week (http://1.usa.gov/R0JwHJ) and cleared the proposed budget unanimously Wednesday by voice vote. “For the administration of prior-year grants, recoveries and unobligated balances of funds previously appropriated are available for the administration of all open grants until their expiration,” the draft bill said in a section titled “Public Telecommunications Facilities, Planning and Construction.” Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker testified before Senate and House lawmakers early in April on these budget items. “To continue expanding broadband capacity and promoting policies to ensure a free and open Internet, the budget requests a total of $51 million” for NTIA to “support increasing wireless broadband access and critical telecommunications policy coordination,” Pritzker had said (CD April 11 p5). House lawmakers emphasized the bill preserves core priority spending, and “bolstering cybersecurity” is one such priority, subcommittee Chairman Frank Wolf, R-Va., said in a statement. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office would receive $46 billion, equivalent to what’s estimated to come in from fees and $434 million above FY2014. The National Institute of Standards and Technology would receive $856 million, $5.8 million above FY2014 and $44.2 million less than what the White House proposed.
"I appreciate NETmundial’s statement endorsing” NTIA’s transition of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions “to the multi-stakeholder community,” said House Communications Subcommittee member Mike Doyle, D-Pa., by email Monday. Scholars and lawmakers are divided on the political implications for NTIA’s transition at NETmundial, last week’s Internet governance conference in Sao Paulo, Brazil (CD April 29 p9). “The opposition of certain countries to this course of action provides proof, if any were needed,” that the transition is an “important step in maintaining the Internet as a platform for free expression and innovation,” said Doyle. A few autocratic regimes, including Russia, expressed concern over NETmundial’s final outcome document (http://bit.ly/1nLhMBC), which endorsed NTIA’s transition and the multistakeholder model.
The House Homeland Security Committee scheduled a markup of several bills including the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System Modernization Act for Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. in 311 Cannon. HR-3283 aims to “modernize and implement the national integrated public alert and warning system to disseminate homeland security information” according to its text.
Four more House members signed on as co-sponsors to the Local Radio Freedom Act (H. Con. Res. 16), giving the measure a majority of support in the House, with 219 co-sponsors, said an NAB news release Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1lv7Wo7). Reps. William Keating, D-Mass., Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., John Culberson, R-Texas, and David McKinley, R-W.Va., are the most recent co-sponsors, it said. The resolution would oppose “'any new performance fee, tax, royalty, or other charge’ on local broadcast radio stations,” said the release. “Signing onto a commemorative resolution, most commonly used to honor sports teams and name post offices, is an empty gesture and hardly a reliable barometer of support,” said Ted Kalo, executive director of the musicFIRST Coalition, in response to the NAB release. “This is particularly true when the resolution itself hides its position in the fine print,” he said. “We are confident many of these ‘cosponsors’ also support performance rights,” said Kalo.
The Senate Intelligence Committee’s proposed cybersecurity information sharing bill is currently called the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, according to a discussion draft leaked to The Washington Post (http://bit.ly/1rBOGFa). Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and committee ranking member Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., have been leading development of the bill. Spokesmen for both senators did not respond to requests for confirmation of the draft’s authenticity. The committee had been seeking industry comment on the bill before the leak, an industry official told us. The draft includes liability protections that would prohibit lawsuits against entities sharing cyberthreat information with “any other entity or the federal government.” Several observers told us the draft closely resembles the House-passed Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), albeit with an expected increase in privacy protections (CD April 23 p7). The bill would direct the Secretary of Homeland Security, Director of National Intelligence and Attorney General to develop and execute procedures that would allow the “timely sharing” of classified and declassified cyberthreat information between the federal government and “appropriate entities,” along with the public release of some declassified threat information. The bill contains several privacy protections, including requiring any shared cyberthreat information be stripped of “any information contained within such indicators that is known to be personal information of or identifying a United States person, not directly related to a cybersecurity threat.” The bill would only allow law enforcement agencies to use shared information with the written consent of entities involved, but allows for oral consent when “the need for immediate use prevents obtaining written consent.” The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board would be required to issue a report every two years assessing the privacy and civil liberties impacts of cyberinformation sharing and assess current protections. Involved federal agencies and their inspectors general would also be required to issue biennial reports on implementation of the bill. The leak of the Senate Intelligence draft, whether authorized or not, likely indicates the committee is “getting close” to formally introducing the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, said James Lewis, director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Technology and Public Policy program. Several observers have said they're skeptical that Senate Intelligence can clear a cyberinformation sharing bill in time to get it through the full Senate and conference with the House, particularly given the fallout over controversial National Security Agency surveillance programs. The draft bill is “one of the most vanilla” cyber bills possible, and has more support from the White House than CISPA (HR-624) because of the enhanced privacy protections, Lewis said. But Senate Intelligence likely only has about five or six weeks to “see if they can get this one moved,” he said. “The issue is, starting at about the end of May, people will begin to think more about re-election and less about legislation.”
TVFreedom framed Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act reauthorization in terms of public safety Tuesday. The spokesman for the coalition of broadcaster interests, which includes NAB among many others, penned a blog post for The Hill (http://bit.ly/1rB3ynp)attacking pay-TV industry recommendations that STELA be amended to allow cable operators to remove broadcast stations from the basic tier. “Eliminating this rule would break from federal decision-makers’ long-standing commitment to first always ensure the safety of the American people in their deliberations on legislative and policy matters,” the TVFreedom spokesman said. The spokesman emphasized how emergency responders count on TV and radio broadcasters “to serve as necessary, real-time sources of information” in times of crisis. The coalition has advocated and advertised for a clean STELA reauthorization process. “If Congress decides to eliminate this consumer safeguard as part of STELA, it will be a disservice to the American public and begin to erode the fundamental premise that Washington’s lawmakers and policymakers have long stood by -- preserving public safety as a core ‘first principle’ in U.S. communications policy,” said the spokesman. The American Television Alliance, which includes several pay-TV industry members, has pushed back against broadcasters. “The government requires that broadcast TV stations be placed on a basic tier, forcing cable subscribers to purchase ‘free’ over-the-air broadcast signals, even if they don’t want them,” it said in a recent blog post (http://bit.ly/1fp5f7m). “A free market cannot exist for video when there are such rules explicitly labeled ‘must buy.'” STELA will expire at the end of 2014 unless Congress reauthorizes it.
The House passed by unanimous voice vote a bill Monday that would kill a broadband report put together by the Agriculture Department. House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., introduced the Government Reports Elimination Act (HR-4194) on March 11. It would kill 79 executive agency reports to Congress that the bill authors deem unnecessary or duplicative. At the Agriculture Department, it would eliminate the Rural Broadband Access Program Report. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., also introduced a version of the bill on March 11, which was referred to the Homeland Security Committee. “By eliminating the 79 reports deemed unnecessary by both the Office of Management and Budget and House Committees, we can save taxpayers an estimated $1 million a year for the next five years,” Issa said in a statement Monday (http://1.usa.gov/1ivr5k9).
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler will go it alone May 20 before the House Communications Subcommittee. Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., announced the hearing Monday and said it will focus on net neutrality, the agency’s broadcast TV incentive auction, broadcast sharing agreements, FCC process revamp and the proposed update to the Communications Act that Walden is leading. “This will be our first opportunity to directly discuss issues important to our technology economy, including recent proposals regarding the incentive auctions, the latest iteration of the administration’s ill advised net neutrality policies, and the broadcast joint sharing agreements and media ownership proceedings at the commission,” Walden said in a statement. He called process revamp a “top priority for the committee.” In the Communications Act overhaul, Walden mentioned “the opportunity to find areas of common ground.” Wheeler last testified before the subcommittee in December.