Critics of the proposed Comcast-Time Warner Cable deal will make their case Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Public Knowledge CEO Gene Kimmelman, whose organization has announced and tried to rally others in opposition to the deal, will testify alongside Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen and Time Warner Cable Chief Financial Officer Arthur Minson. Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., chairs the Antitrust Subcommittee and is another vocal opponent of the deal. Kimmelman is a member of the American Antitrust Institute’s advisory board. The American Antitrust Institute warned Senate Judiciary of the deal in a letter sent Friday. It “believes that the proposed merger raises pressing issues related to competition, consumer welfare, and the protection of free speech that a diverse and independent media ensures,” AAI said (http://bit.ly/1gEqk7C). “A merged Comcast-TWC could potentially exercise undue control over: (1) the timing, method, quality, and pricing of content and its distribution; (2) the rivals that produce and distribute content; (3) the scope and nature of content; and (4) the pace of innovation in broadband development.” AAI is planning to release a white paper on the effects of the deal, set to address many questions, in late April, it said: “For example, how might combining the cable television and broadband distribution systems of Comcast and TWC enhance the merged company’s ability to restrict competing content providers’ access to a significant base of consumers through distribution channels controlled by the merged company?” Comcast, meanwhile, has defended the deal as good for consumers and has begun an advertising campaign saying “Together Is Better,” referring to the proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable. Also testifying at the 10 a.m. hearing, now scheduled to be in 216 Hart rather than in Dirksen as originally planned, are James Bosworth, CEO of Back9Network; Richard Sherwin, CEO of Spot on Networks; and Christopher Yoo, a University of Pennsylvania law professor. Veria Living, an independent TV network whose CEO Eric Sherman met with Judiciary staff of both parties last month, will also provide written testimony, and Sherman will attend the hearing, a Veria Living spokesman told us. The FCC and Justice Department must ultimately rule on the deal.

The Federal Spectrum Incentive Act, (HR-3674), “would reduce discretionary costs by $8 million over the 2015-2019 period” and “increase net direct spending by $30 million over the 2015-2024 period,” said a Congressional Budget Office analysis (http://1.usa.gov/1mUDdT9). Reps. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., and Doris Matsui, D-Calif., introduced the bill last year, which cleared the House Commerce Committee in December. The legislation proposes allowing federal agencies to receive a portion of money back from the sale of spectrum they relinquish. “Because the money in the SRF [Spectrum Relocation Fund] generally remains available for a period of eight years, CBO anticipates each affected agency would receive a total of about $8 million from the SRF and that the Office of Management and Budget would record the use of budget authority in the budget when [spectrum] auction receipts are deposited,” CBO said. “Outlays would be recorded in the budget as expenses are incurred.” Pay-as-you-go procedures would apply, CBO added.

The Senate Commerce Committee will include the FCC Consolidated Reporting Act (S-1379) among the 15 bills it intends to consider at its executive session Wednesday (http://1.usa.gov/1q141hN), it said Thursday. The bill, introduced by Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., mirrors a bill of the same name (HR-2844) that passed the House unanimously in September (CD Sept 11 p18). The bill calls for the FCC to produce one consolidated Communications Marketplace Report -- rather than the current eight separate reports -- and kills outdated references. Senate Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., has previously said he would not consider S-1379. Not on the committee’s agenda is the Transparency in Assertion of Patents Act (S-2049), which would extend the FTC’s authority to regulate patent assertion entities’ use of pre-litigation demand letters. The bill appeared to be on the fast track to Senate Commerce consideration when Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., introduced it in late February, but the committee has since twice postponed its planned markup of the bill (CD March 17 p6). The committee meeting is to begin at 2:30 p.m. in 253 Russell.

The Senate Judiciary Committee appeared to still be in negotiations Friday afternoon on compromise language for the Patent Transparency and Improvements Act (S-1720), parties told us. The committee had delayed a markup of the bill until Tuesday afternoon to allow additional work on the compromise, which will be introduced in the form of a manager’s amendment. Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., had said during a committee meeting Thursday that those negotiations were in the “final stages” (CD April 4 p9). The committee appeared to still be “hashing out the fee-shifting language, the joinder provision that attaches to the fee-shifting, and the discovery reforms,” said Daniel Nazer, an Electronic Frontier Foundation staff attorney who focuses on patent revamp efforts. The committee has promised to release the language of the manager’s amendment and any other amendments up for debate well before the markup, meaning there’s a tight deadline for negotiations to conclude, Nazer said. A Monday posting of the manager’s amendment would be particularly problematic because it would be difficult for stakeholders to “digest a 60-page bill in a day,” said an industry lobbyist. The markup is set to begin at 2:30 p.m. in 106 Dirksen.

House co-chairmen of the Rural Telecom Working Group introduced a “sense of the House” resolution on what the FCC should do on rural call completion problems. House Resolution 536 is five pages long and says “all providers must appropriately complete calls to all areas of the United States regardless of the technology used by the providers” and that “no entity may unreasonably discriminate against telephone users in rural areas.” Its authors are Reps. Bob Latta, R-Ohio, vice chairman of the Communications Subcommittee, and Peter Welch, D-Vt. The FCC must “aggressively pursue” any companies who violate agency rules and hurt service quality in rural areas, with “swift and meaningful enforcement actions” applied when necessary, the resolution text said (http://1.usa.gov/PqpsNN). The FCC should “move forward with clear, comprehensive, and enforceable actions in order to establish a robust and definitive solution to discrimination against telephone users in rural areas of the United States,” it said. The FCC has said it’s made rural call completion problems a priority and engaged in enforcement actions and proceedings to address the issues (CD March 13 p7). “While the FCC is taking action to pursue those entities responsible, this bipartisan resolution highlights the lingering prevalence of the problem and emphasizes the need for sustained efforts by the Commission to aggressively pursue those who violate call completion rules,” Welch and Latta said in a joint statement. NTCA backs the resolution. “This resolution, in conjunction with comparable measures introduced in the Senate, can help put a stop to rural consumers’ ongoing inability to receive phone calls,” CEO Shirley Bloomfield said in a statement Thursday. “With both chambers of Congress and the FCC now actively engaged in finding a solution to this problem, we are hopeful we will be able to bring least-cost routers out of the shadows, better ensure the reliability of our nation’s networks, and promote the safety and well-being of rural Americans.” The resolution has been referred to the Commerce Committee.

The House Judiciary Committee plans an oversight hearing on the Justice Department for next week, it said. Attorney General Eric Holder will testify at a session scheduled for Tuesday at 10 a.m. in 2141 Rayburn. Holder has been a central figure in the White House’s attempt to overhaul its surveillance practices amid public and congressional scrutiny, much of which has come from House Judiciary.

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson praised the Senate Finance Committee for its Thursday markup of what he called the “important” Expiring Provisions Improvement Reform and Efficiency (EXPIRE) Act. “The bill’s two-year commitment to these crucial tax-extenders is a bridge to meaningful comprehensive tax reform that provides the certainty needed to drive investment and job creation in the United States,” Stephenson said in a statement (http://bit.ly/1sdBGsy). He pointed to what he sees as a key “extension of accelerated bonus depreciation,” which “gives us the confidence to begin moving forward with the deployment of fiber to additional U.S. cities.” Industry associations across the telecom and media sector, among others, have been asking Congress for months, on multiple occasions, to reinstate into law bonus depreciation provisions, which had expired at the end of last year. The National Air Transportation Association also issued a statement Thursday praising the markup for including this provision. The bonus depreciation provision was instituted as part of the 2008 economic stimulus efforts. The bill would extend businesses’ 50 percent bonus depreciation for their investments through December 2015. Stephenson credited his confidence in AT&T’s increased fiber deployment to his assessment that this bill can become law, and he suspects other companies will feel the same, he said. “This spring, I'm going to start holding hearings on fixing the broken tax code and building a new system that works in today’s global, digital economy,” Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said in his opening statement at the markup session Thursday (http://1.usa.gov/1hFtsow). “But today, we need to balance short-term needs with long-term goals, and the bill before us today does that.”

Front groups for the broadcast and pay-TV industries trumpeted what they saw as victories in statements following the Tuesday Senate Communications Subcommittee hearing (CD April 2 p4) on Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act reauthorization. The American Television Alliance, representing pay-TV interests, lauded key Democrats who “recognize that now is the time to act to update our video rules,” it said in a statement. “Consumers should not have to wait several more years for new rules, especially given that those rules may be outdated by the time they are actually made law. STELA provides an immediate opportunity to help protect consumers.” TVFreedom, representing various broadcaster interests and preferring a clean STELA reauthorization, issued a statement praising Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., for her attacks during the hearing on pay-TV billing practices. The billing experience McCaskill has encountered, wherein she discovered extra charges applied to her bill that she should not have had to pay, “infuriates” her, she said, asking witnesses from the FCC and DirecTV about the billing and what can be done. McCaskill doubts STELA will encounter any “smooth sailing” through the Senate, she said.

Three Senate Democrats slammed a government surveillance loophole that an intelligence official confirmed in the last week. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper sent a letter to Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Friday confirming that “there have been queries, using U.S. person identifiers, of communications lawfully acquired to obtain foreign intelligence by targeting non U.S. persons reasonably believed to be located outside the U.S. pursuant to Section 702 of” the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (http://1.usa.gov/1hB7yCL). That statutory authority has widely been seen to target non-citizen communications outside the U.S. The “admission by the Director of National Intelligence is further proof that meaningful surveillance reform must include closing the back-door searches loophole and requiring the intelligence community to show probable cause before deliberately searching through data collected under section 702 to find the communications of individual Americans,” said Wyden and Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., in a joint statement Tuesday (http://1.usa.gov/1hBiGj0). “The revelation that -- despite the clear intent of Section 702 to target foreign communications -- the government is deliberating [sic] searching for the phone calls or emails of specific Americans and circumventing traditional warrant protections should be concerning to all.” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., also slammed the news in a separate statement, saying such loopholes “cannot be tolerated” and are “an outrage.” The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has actively alerted the public to this surveillance practice in the last week, tweeting out on Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1pRJEnc) the same declassified government report that Clapper referred to in his letter.

The FY 2015 budget proposed by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., seeks to “limit the federal government’s role” in the telecom industry, “curbing corporate welfare” delivered to it, said Ryan’s broad outline released Tuesday (http://1.usa.gov/1jUccyW). It cited revenue benefits of electromagnetic spectrum. The plan proposes cutting $5.1 trillion over the next decade but gives little specific breakdown in funding for different government agencies in 2015. “The resolution calls for $27.9 billion in budget authority as well as outlays in fiscal year 2015,” it said. “Of that total, discretionary spending in fiscal year 2015 totals $27.8 billion in budget authority and $27.8 billion in outlays. Mandatory spending in 2015 is $100 million in budget authority and $98 million in outlays.” Ryan plans to mark up the bill (http://1.usa.gov/Pef7oy) Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. in 210 Cannon. The White House released its $3.9 trillion FY 2015 budget last month.