Senators actively concerned about rural call completion issues have yet to sign on to legislation on the issue. Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., introduced a bill Thursday that targets intermediate providers and would compel basic service quality standards (CD March 14 p7). S-2125, the Public Safety and Economic Security Communications Act, lists zero co-sponsors, but Senate Commerce Committee ranking member John Thune, R-S.D., and Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., who have both voiced strong concerns about rural call completion problems, expressed some receptivity to Johnson’s action. “Call completion is an ongoing problem in rural America, and the FCC is in the middle of an effort to resolve the issue by adopting recording, retention, and reporting requirements for long distance carriers to address problems with completing calls to rural areas,” Thune told us in a statement. “The FCC has also engaged in some enforcement actions on call completion, which I would like to see increase. I have made a point to reiterate these concerns personally with each of the FCC Commissioners who have agreed to step up enforcement actions, but should these efforts not prove to be effective in reducing the call completion problem within a reasonable time, I think it may be appropriate to take legislative action.” A spokeswoman for Fischer cited Fischer’s involvement in a resolution on call completion issues with Johnson and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., which passed the Commerce Committee last summer and awaits Senate action. “Senator Fischer’s focus remains on getting this resolution passed and is pleased to see Senator Johnson remains a committed partner in efforts to address these challenges,” the spokeswoman said. A spokeswoman for Klobuchar did not comment. Johnson’s bill has been referred to the Commerce Committee. NARUC state regulators “applaud Sen. Johnson for introducing legislation to address call completion problems that have plagued rural America for the last several years,” said NARUC President Colette Honorable in a statement. “NARUC has adopted multiple resolutions calling for action while several State commissions have moved to investigate and act on intrastate call-completion issues. While the FCC has proposed changes and is collecting data to better monitor the situation, this legislation would be a significant step forward in eliminating the problem.” The FCC has taken several actions recently on rural call completion, an agency spokesman said. (See separate report in this issue.)

House Commerce Committee Republican leaders are not happy with how the FCC is handling TV station sharing agreements, most recently singling out the Media Bureau public notice Wednesday that it would apply extra scrutiny to the approval of such sharing agreements (CD March 14 p9). “Coming on the heels of the House’s overwhelming bipartisan approval of the FCC Process Reform Act Monday evening, the FCC Media Bureau’s action not only flies in the face of reform, it reveals an alarming disregard for process,” said Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., in a statement Thursday. “This effort raises questions about Chairman [Tom] Wheeler’s stated commitment to process reform. This end-run around the full commission is a step back for transparency and reform.” Walden inserted language into his draft legislation of the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act that would prevent the FCC from making sharing agreements attributable until the agency completes its quadrennial review. “On the [joint sales agreements], the FCC needs to follow the law,” Walden told reporters following a subcommittee hearing Wednesday. “For the life of me, I don’t understand why they can’t follow the law and finish their quadrennial review.” The agency is “disrupting a marketplace dealing with an issue that really has to deal with ownership,” Walden added. “The quadrennial review is about ownership. What we're saying is, ‘Do your job, follow the law before you go out there and picking and choosing on the JSA issue that could have enormous disruption.'"

A bill to “strengthen privacy and data security” (HR-4215) was introduced by Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., Wednesday, according to Congress.gov (http://1.usa.gov/1fAQWKY). The bill’s summary is “in progress” and the text hadn’t been received as of Thursday, it said. We couldn’t immediately reach Connolly’s office Thursday for the bill text.

A key member of the House Intelligence Committee reversed course on phone surveillance. Ranking member Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., no longer wants the government to collect phone metadata in bulk, as it currently does. “We should end the government’s bulk collection of telephone metadata, but preserve the important capability the intelligence community needs to keep us safe,” Ruppersberger said in a statement. “We must design a targeted and closely overseen way to find the early indicators of domestic terrorism. We must have mandatory judicial review, we must ensure that telecommunication providers are legally required to turn over their relevant records, and we must not require them to hold their data any longer than they normally do.” The process “efficiently and effectively gets the Intelligence Community the information it needs to protect our country and her people,” he added. Ruppersberger’s advocacy is “not yet legislation” so much as “just proposed changes for the time being,” his spokeswoman told us. Ruppersberger had previously spoken publicly about crafting a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act revamp bill with committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., legislation widely expected to codify the phone surveillance practices that exist now. They both described working on that for months, up through December. That legislation has never been introduced, and one committee Democrat, Jim Himes of Connecticut, has told us it is stalled for good (CD Dec 30 p4).

The Senate Judiciary Committee plans a hearing on the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act reauthorization March 26 at 10 a.m. in 226 Dirksen, it said Wednesday. The committee also confirmed, as expected, that it will postpone an oversight hearing on Comcast’s planned buy of Time Warner Cable initially planned for that day. That hearing will now be a week later, on April 2 at 10 a.m. in 226 Dirksen. Witnesses haven’t been announced for the hearings.

The Senate Judiciary Committee bumped back its oversight hearing on the Comcast-Time Warner Cable deal, an industry source told us. The committee initially planned for a hearing at the end of March, but now it will be April 2, the source said. A spokeswoman for Judiciary did not confirm whether the hearing was moved to the later date. The committee website also does not yet list the hearing on either date -- the March hearing date was first mentioned in a committee news release.

The Senate must act on the FCC Process Reform Act, said Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev. It passed the House by voice vote Tuesday. Heller introduced companion legislation to that bipartisan compromise bill earlier this year. “The Administration and the House of Representatives have weighed in on the issue of process reform,” he said, pointing to “growing momentum” for the legislation. FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai also backs this bill and the FCC Consolidated Reporting Act, which the House unanimously passed last fall. “Together, these bills recognize the need to modernize the FCC to reflect our dynamic, converged communications marketplace,” Pai said. “And they would eliminate outdated mandates on the agency, streamline its operations, and make it more accountable to the public.” The FCC Process Reform Act “furthers the important objective of encouraging greater transparency and predictability in FCC decision making, and ensures that business can continue to invest and innovate with more consistent federal oversight,” NCTA said in a statement. “While agency process has improved under recent chairmen, this legislation will ensure that reforms remain in place from one administration to the next,” House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., said in a statement after the bill’s passage. Consumers “deserve a transparent and responsive” FCC, Walden said on the House floor Tuesday night. He mentioned “dangerous outcomes” that can occur otherwise, bringing up the FCC’s canceled Critical Information Needs study -- a high point of controversy drawing heavy Republican criticism in recent months. The bill is widely expected to stall in the Senate.

The House Communications Subcommittee has not typically weighed in on such big deals as the proposed combination of Comcast and Time Warner Cable, the panel’s Republican leader said Wednesday. “I'm going to let the experts in the agencies do their evaluation going forward,” Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., told reporters after a subcommittee hearing. “We have not generally done hearings on specific deals because we have experts in the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice and the FCC who are fully capable and competent at working through these.” But the issues of mergers and the video marketplace “may well be a topic” in the subcommittee’s Communications Act overhaul, he said. He declined to rule out a subcommittee hearing. The subcommittee had held one on the deal between Comcast and NBCUniversal.

A White House report to Congress emphasized the importance of broadband stimulus investment. “The Economic Report of the President,” as it’s titled, said one trend “that presents a major opportunity for long-term growth is the rapid advance in telecommunications technology, particularly in fast and widely available wired and wireless broadband networks, and in their capacity to allow mobile devices to take advantage of cloud computing,” it said (http://1.usa.gov/OdLAdJ). “From 2009 to 2012, annual investment in U.S. wireless networks grew more than 40 percent from $21 billion to $30 billion, and the United States now leads the world in the availability of advanced 4G wireless broadband Internet services. This infrastructure is at the center of a vibrant ecosystem that includes smartphone design, mobile app development, and the deployment of these technologies in sectors like business, health care, education, public safety, entertainment, and more.” It pointed to broadband stimulus grants that yielded more than 110,000 miles of infrastructure added or improved as well as high-speed connections made available to 20,000 community anchor institutions. The report emphasized the role of spectrum and called for “new advances in the sharing of spectrum between different users, particularly between government and private users.” It also emphasized the importance of the White House’s ConnectED initiative and attention to patents.

The Telecommunications Industry Association underscored the necessity of passing the FCC Process Reform Act (HR-3675) into law, and praised the House for its scheduled floor vote Tuesday.