The House Innovation Subcommittee plans a June 26 hearing with Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo about her department’s FY 2025 budget request, the Commerce Committee said Tuesday night. President Joe Biden in March proposed funding increases for NTIA and other Commerce agencies in excess of what they received for FY 2024 (see 2403040083). Biden sought $65 million for NTIA, $4.5 billion for the Patent Office, $1.5 billion for the National Institute of Standards and Technology and $233.4 million for the Bureau of Industry and Security (see 2403110056). The hearing will begin at 10 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn.

Opposition to the Kids Online Safety Act is preventing the bill from passing by unanimous consent, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Thursday (see 2312040058). A co-sponsor of the legislation, Schumer said he outlined a plan in May for UC passage of the bill. “I personally helped resolve issues and mitigated unintended consequences of the bill,” he said on the floor. “That effort reduced the opposition, but there are still holdouts.” Schumer said there’s been “real progress” in removing objections to the bill over the course of several weeks. But if “objectors refuse to come to a resolution, we must pursue a different legislative path to get this done,” he said. Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., planned to seek UC passage in December before abandoning plans to allow further negotiation. Lead Democratic sponsor Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut on Thursday said he’s “confident based on my conversations with Leader Schumer we are going to get this bill done.” The bill has 70 co-sponsors. Parents of children who died in social media-related incidents sent a letter to Schumer on Tuesday urging him to “keep his promise” and hold a vote on the bill by Thursday. Schumer noted on the floor that he has been meeting with victims' families. “I have seen their terrible stories, and I am committed, completely committed, to work with them to get KOSA across the finish line.”

Bipartisan legislation filed Thursday would make it illegal to publish deepfake pornography and revenge porn. Introduced by Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., the bill would require social media platforms to remove nonconsensual, explicit content within 48 hours of a “valid request from a victim.” The FTC would enforce the legislation, the Tools to Address Known Exploitation by Immobilizing Technological Deepfakes on Websites and Networks (Take It Down) Act. The bill has 11 other co-sponsoring senators, including Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. Lummis told us recently that the bill is a more-targeted approach than Klobuchar’s legislation with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits (Defiance) Act. On June 12 Lummis blocked Durbin’s effort to pass the Defiance Act by unanimous consent. The Defiance Act, which is co-sponsored by Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., would establish a right for victims to seek civil damages for harm related to synthetic, nonconsensual deepfake content. Cruz said his bill will empower victims by “putting the responsibility on websites to have in place procedures to remove these images.”

The House Appropriations Committee advanced the Financial Services Subcommittee’s FY 2025 funding bill, which includes annual funding for the FCC and FTC. Lawmakers approved the measure on a 33-24 party-line vote Thursday night. The legislation increases the FCC’s annual allocation to $416 million and decreases the FTC’s yearly money to $388.7 million (see 2406050067). Committee Democrats ultimately didn’t seek amendments aimed at removing riders from the funding bill that bar the FCC from using its allocation to implement its net neutrality and digital discrimination orders, as some lobbyists thought possible (see 2406130064). House Appropriations also voted 33-24 to advance the Legislative Branch Subcommittee’s FY25 funding bill, which includes $59.7 million for the Copyright Office.

The House Commerce Committee plans to vote on the Telehealth Enhancement for Mental Health Act (HR-7858) as part of a Wednesday markup session on health legislation. HR-7858 would direct the Department of Health and Human Services to implement a Medicare coding modifier to identify telehealth claims for services that are key components of the mental healthcare process involving nonphysician clinicians. HR-7858 was one of several telehealth bills the House Commerce Health Subcommittee examined during an April hearing (see 2404040063). House Commerce’s markup session will begin at 10 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn, the panel said Monday night.

The House Rules Committee will decide Tuesday about allowing a floor vote on an amendment from Reps. Nikki Budzinski, D-Ill., and Mike Carey, R-Ohio, to the Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and FY 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (HR-8070) that mirrors an earlier bipartisan Senate proposal that allocates funding for the FCC’s expired affordable connectivity program and Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program. The Budzinski-Carey proposal, like the amendment Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., unsuccessfully sought to attach to the FAA reauthorization law in May (see 2405090052), allocates $6 billion in FY 2024 ACP stopgap funding and $3.08 billion for rip and replace. It also proposes major structural changes for ACP, including ending the initiative’s $100 device subsidy and altering its eligibility rules. Another amendment, led by Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., would direct that the Federal Emergency Management Agency's director “clarify and document the responsibilities and decision-making process” for the Integrated Public Alert Warning System “to deliver tsunami alerts to the Emergency Alert System.” House Rules’ meeting on HR-8070 amendments will begin at noon in H-313 in the Capitol.

The House Appropriations Committee plans a Thursday vote on the Financial Services Subcommittee’s FY 2025 funding bill, which proposes increasing the FCC’s allocation over FY 2024 and decreasing funds for the FTC. The funding bill, which House Appropriations Financial Services advanced last week, includes riders barring the FCC from using its allocation to implement its net neutrality and digital discrimination orders (see 2406050067). The measure gives the FCC $416 million for FY25, including almost $12.7 million for its independent Office of the Inspector General. It includes $388.7 million for the FTC. The markup session will begin at 9 a.m. in 2359 Rayburn, House Appropriations said Friday.

The Senate Commerce Committee said Wednesday night it will mark up the Spectrum and National Security Act (S-4207) June 12, as expected (see 2406050056). S-4207 would restore the FCC’s spectrum auction authority through Sept. 30, 2029, lend the commission more than $10 billion in FY 2024 funding for the expired affordable connectivity program and fully fund the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program. The Wednesday meeting would be Senate Commerce’s third attempt at marking up S-4207 after pulling it from consideration on two previous occasions (see 2405160066). The meeting will begin at 10 a.m. in 253 Russell. Republican FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr appeared to oppose S-4207 during a Thursday news conference. It’s “not clear to me that” S-4207 “gets the job done,” Carr told reporters. It “largely aligns with the Biden administration’s approach on spectrum” highlighted in its national spectrum strategy. Carr has repeatedly criticized the Biden spectrum strategy since its November release (see 2311130048). “I don’t think it is going to get us back to moving on spectrum with the same pace and cadence that we had” under former FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, Carr said: “We need to start clearing more spectrum, including high-power licensed exclusive use” and license sales should go toward clearing “the national debt.”

Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Gary Peters, D-Mich., said Wednesday his office is crafting legislation that will help the federal government harmonize its confusing “web” of cyber regulations. National Cyber Director Harry Coker called for congressional help Tuesday, announcing a pilot program for his office’s harmonization effort (see 2406040029). Peters said during a hearing Wednesday that in the past four years, regulators have approved 48 cyber rules. That’s in addition to the multitude of regulations passed at the state and local level, he said. Some industries, including banking, must answer to more than a dozen federal agencies on cybersecurity issues, he said. Peters’ bill would create a “harmonization committee” at the Office of the National Cyber Director that would coordinate efforts with agencies. Without higher level coordination, there’s no way to ensure the rules don’t overlap, duplicate or contradict each other, the lawmaker said. A more coherent network will help U.S. companies compete globally, he added. Information and communications technology is largely the same regardless of the industry, said Nicholas Leiserson, assistant national cyber director-cyber policy and programs, during the hearing: That means it’s possible to set baseline requirements across sectors.

The FTC and SEC should hold UnitedHealth Group accountable for “negligent cyber practices” that exacerbated a February ransomware attack against the company, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., wrote the agencies Thursday. UHG confirmed hackers initially breached a remote access server because it wasn’t protected with multifactor authentication, Wyden said: “The cyberattack against UHG could have been prevented had UHG followed industry best practices. UHG’s failure to follow those best practices, and the harm that resulted, is the responsibility of the company’s senior officials.” Wyden urged the FTC and SEC to investigate UHG’s “numerous cybersecurity and technology failures” and determine if it broke federal laws. The FTC confirmed receiving the letter but declined comment. The SEC said Chair Gary Gensler will respond to Congress directly. UHG defended the company’s response to the attack on Change Healthcare. A spokesperson said Thursday: “The fact that the company moved quickly and effectively in response to this attack is testament to our company’s commitment to strong cybersecurity.” UGH is looking forward to working with policymakers and stakeholders to develop “strong, practical solutions,” the company said.