FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai highlighted problems with multiline telephone systems and emergency communications, speaking Friday before the Congressional Next-Gen 911 Caucus, citing a recent situation in which a caller failed to successfully dial 911 from a hotel. Multiline telephone systems operate in “hotels, motels, office buildings, and schools,” Pai said, and “the truth of the matter is that we don’t know the extent of the problem. That’s why I launched an inquiry last month to gather the facts.” He sent a letter to the CEOs of the 10 largest hotel chains in the U.S., with responses due Feb. 14, he said. Pai said there’s a question of who should be picking up the other end of the line in an emergency call as well as the question of location. “In large office buildings or complexes, on college campuses, and in hotels, it’s not enough for first responders to show up at the front door, if one even exists,” Pai said. “Bringing accurate location information to these emergency personnel is critical."

Congress must extend the bonus depreciation provision of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, CenturyLink said Thursday (http://bit.ly/1eBKtyc). The provision expired Dec. 31, and USTelecom, CTIA, NCTA, NTCA-The Rural Broadband Association, Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance, Telecommunications Industry Association and PCIA-The Wireless Infrastructure Association said last month it should be extended. “Bonus depreciation provides tax incentives to companies that continue to invest, or expand their investments, in a slow economy,” CenturyLink said in a post on its policy blog. “Such investments include infrastructure improvements that create new jobs and lead to increased productivity. Extending the bonus depreciation provision will provide companies with the certainty they need to make investments that will improve our global competitiveness and help drive our economy forward.” Opponents said extending the provision would be a costly, poor policy decision.

Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., committed to “curtailing government surveillance overreach” as the new ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee’s Constitution Subcommittee, he said in a statement (http://1.usa.gov/1ixnbtC). Cohen was also named as a member of House Judiciary’s Intellectual Property Subcommittee.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., tore into the idea of allowing a third party to hold phone metadata for surveillance rather than the government. He has already criticized the idea of phone companies holding the metadata, as some have proposed. President Barack Obama has said the government should transition away from holding the metadata, if possible. “One of the most remarkable things in my lifetime is the ignorance of people who should know better, very much including the press,” Rockefeller said Thursday during a summit on distracted driving, mentioning the third-party idea. “That would take 30 years to get people trained to the point where they're the absolute and total experts. … Nobody understands that, nobody wants to take the time to understand that, which is depressing, because it’s a very large fact, so people don’t pay attention.”

Common Cause praised the net neutrality legislation introduced by Democrats this week (http://bit.ly/1c7BYqr). Democrats introduced the bill to restore net neutrality rules vacated by a January ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. “Everyone concerned about the future of our communications owes these Hill leaders a huge debt of gratitude,” said Michael Copps, special adviser to Common Cause’s Media and Democracy Reform Initiative, and a former FCC commissioner, in a statement. “Now it’s time for the FCC to seize this opportunity to guarantee an Open Internet -- not by half measures and baby steps, but by exercising the authority Congress and the Circuit Court have provided them.” Common Cause backs reclassification of broadband as a Title II telecom service. Lobbyists have told us the bill is unlikely to move in Congress but may act as a signal to the FCC.

NTCA-the Rural Broadband Association praised Congress for passing the farm bill this week. CEO Shirley Bloomfield expressed pleasure the bill would provide for the Department of Agriculture’s Broadband Loan Program. “This program provides support that small, community-based telecommunications providers have put to good use serving the highest-cost and hardest-to-serve pockets of rural America with access to broadband services that help ensure economic success,” Bloomfield said in a statement Wednesday.

Avoid applying needless regulation in any Communications Act update, three Republican members of the Senate Commerce Committee wrote in a joint op-ed for The Hill (http://bit.ly/1lB613u). House Republicans announced their intent to overhaul the landmark Telecom Act of 1996 in December, with action planned for 2014 and 2015. “Unfortunately, some would still have people believe that the only way to provide real consumer choice is to have the federal government dictating how consumers are offered services and what those services might be,” said Sens. Dean Heller of Nevada, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire. “This approach is born from the mindset that regulations beget innovation and that bureaucrats in the government, not entrepreneurship, create competition.” They decried “knee-jerk regulatory prescription” and instead suggested empowering consumers through the promotion of competition. They said they welcome a rewrite of the act and emphasized the technology changes that have happened since 1996.

The House Communications Subcommittee will dig into broadband stimulus projects in a Tuesday hearing, the panel said in a notice. The hearing will be in 2322 Rayburn at 10:30 a.m. Subcommittee Republicans have been frequently critical of the billions in grants given through the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program. “With the five-year anniversary of the law approaching next week, members will revisit the broadband stimulus that has been plagued by mismanagement and poor decision making in order to understand how we can better protect taxpayer dollars in the future,” the notice said. Witnesses weren’t announced.

CEA plans to talk about its Innovating Safety public education campaign at a Senate distracted driving summit Thursday, it said in a press release Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1bvOD9y). Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., is leading the summit on “Technological Solutions to Distracted Driving,” with plans for three panels in 253 Russell, the first at 10 a.m. and the last at 2:30 p.m. “We will also detail the work our association is doing as part of our Driver Device Interface Working Group, created to develop best practices for designing products that help maximize the driver’s ability to safely use consumer technologies in the car,” said CEA Vice President-Congressional Affairs Veronica O'Connell in a statement.

A high-ranking House Republican spurned the net neutrality bill introduced by her Democratic colleagues (CD Feb 4 p1). The bicameral legislation would restore, at least until the agency acts on a court remand, the net neutrality rules that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit struck down in a mid-January decision. “If the FCC follows through on President [Barack] Obama’s wishes they will be constructing an Internet Iron Curtain that will restrict our online freedom and serve as an industry job-killer,” House Commerce Committee Vice Chairman Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said in a statement Monday night. “It’s more than ironic that the same Administration that can’t figure out how to make Healthcare.Gov work now thinks that regulating the Internet like China and Russia will make things better for American consumers.” The bill, introduced Monday, is expected to be widely opposed by Republicans.