The House Appropriations Committee approved by voice vote a measure that could mean less money for the FCC and FTC in FY 2016. The committee signed off on how much money each of the different appropriations titles would receive for the next year. A Democratic lawmaker warned against the cuts in the $20.25 billion in allocations for Financial Services, a small portion of which would encompass the FCC and FTC budgets. “We take a 6 percent reduction,” Financial Services Subcommittee ranking member Jose Serrano, D-N.Y., said Wednesday during a session of the full Appropriations Committee. “We took a 6 percent reduction last year. … Why these cuts?” He questioned whether the reduction was really a cut or whether it was done due to an “agenda somewhere” and emphasized the subcommittee deals with many controversial issues, not specifically naming net neutrality -- a topic that dominated a subcommittee hearing with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in March (see 1503240045). Some Democratic lawmakers expressed frustration at many billions in cuts across the board that the suballocations would show, but Committee Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky., shot back that there have been many subcommittee hearings and that lawmakers should have been asking questions of agency heads about what they would do with less money. “We’ve had that chance all spring,” Rogers said. The FCC has repeatedly called for more money this year, citing big-ticket needs such as a headquarters relocation. “Approval of these allocations will allow us to bring all of the bills to the floor,” Rogers remarked, calling the breakdowns of funding “fair and balanced.” The budget asks “everyone to tighten their belts,” Rogers said. The committee hasn't released a budget proposal for the FCC and FTC.
In a partisan 10-7 vote, the Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade sent forward the Targeting Rogue and Opaque Letters Act (TROL Act) Wednesday, a House Commerce Committee news release said. “The TROL Act is a balanced solution to stop the practice of fraudulent and abusive patent demand letters, while preserving the ability of patent holders to legitimately protect their intellectual property,” the release said. “Abusive patent assertion entities (PAEs), or patent trolls, unfairly target small businesses and cost American companies tens of billions of dollars every year by threatening litigation. The TROL act seeks to increase transparency and accountability in patent demand letters and provides the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) with the authority to levy fines on bad actors that send deceptive demand letters.” Subcommittee Chairman Michael Burgess, R-Texas, said the committee would continue to work to strengthen the legislation and encouraged stakeholders to participate. Committee ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., said he wouldn't support the bill because it “creates a disincentive to enforcement by tying the hands of state attorneys general and by creating barriers to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) enforcement that are simply too high.” The bill “would completely pre-empt the 20 laws that expressly address abusive patent assertion communications” and “severely constrains states’ ability to take an active role by limiting available remedies and placing an arbitrary cap on civil penalties,” Pallone said at the markup hearing, according to opening remarks emailed to us. “Just like with the data breach bill, if Congress seeks to pre-empt specific state laws -- especially on issues on which the states have been leaders fighting unfair and deceptive acts, such as false and misleading demand letters -- the federal effort should be at least as strong as those state laws,” Pallone said. Four amendments were introduced for the bill. One by Burgess was accepted on a voice vote, another was withdrawn. Amendments proposed by Democrats Jan Schakowsky of Illinois and Joseph Kennedy of Massachusetts, were defeated on a partisan roll call vote.
Register of Copyrights Maria Pallante will testify during an April 29 House Judiciary Committee hearing on the U.S. Copyright Office's perspective on possible updates to U.S. copyright law, the committee said Wednesday. The Judiciary hearing is a continuation of the committee's ongoing review of U.S. copyright law, committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said in a news release. Pallante will testify during the hearing that she “has a unique perspective regarding the copyright issues that have arisen with the advancement of technology,” Goodlatte said. The hearing is to begin at 10 a.m. in 2141 Rayburn.
Broadband for America, a group backed by ISPs, is lobbying Congress to advance bipartisan net neutrality legislation. “Small manufacturing companies play a major role in providing Internet access to millions of Americans while creating good jobs and driving economic growth,” reads the text at the outset of a video the group posted online last week. “Here is what they have to say about the Internet regulations.” The video shows interviews with different manufacturing industry figures and highlights the uncertainty they see associated with the new FCC net neutrality order. “Manufacturers proudly support an open Internet,” Broadband for America said. “Bipartisan leadership is needed to keep the Internet open.” The group also flags a petition website called United for an Open Internet. The URL was registered Feb. 5, the day FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler circulated his net neutrality order within the FCC. “Please urge your representatives to pass bipartisan net neutrality legislation that protects consumers and doesn’t treat the Internet like a public utility,” the petition website said. “Enter your zip code below and click submit to be matched to your legislators and send them a letter asking them to support the net neutrality legislation that has been proposed.” It alluded to draft legislation that would codify net neutrality rules while limiting FCC authority, which GOP leaders of the Commerce committees circulated in January.
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., is “committed to creating a stand-alone broadband fund for Rate-of-Return Carriers before the end of this year,” he plans to tell NTCA members Tuesday, according to prepared remarks for his speech. NTCA is turning its attention to Capitol Hill this week for its 2015 legislative and policy conference in Washington. NTCA plans more than 200 meetings while its members are in town, a spokeswoman for the association told us. Much of the conference is closed to the media and the public, but the agenda shows that Hill staffers and lawmakers are speaking to NTCA members at the conference hotel. Two lawmakers, Manchin and Rep. David Young, R-Iowa, are scheduled to speak Tuesday during a kickoff breakfast event. “There are cost savings that we can, and should, realize through responsible reforms, and we should use this funding to support our rate-of-return carriers who are oftentimes the only provider in the communities they serve,” Manchin, a Commerce Committee member, will say. Manchin intends to affirm the need to leverage “public-private partnerships between companies like yours and our government” to “help continue to drive economic development, entrepreneurship and innovation across the country” and also emphasize his Commerce Committee priority “to expand broadband access so that every household, educational facility, business and municipality has access to high-speed Internet.” Young will speak for five to 10 minutes and intends to meet with some Iowans, his office told us. Monday, NTCA was scheduled to have heard from Commerce committee staffers from both parties and chambers -- Republican Ray Baum and Democrat Margaret McCarthy from the House and Republican Greg Orlando and Democrat Shawn Bone from the Senate. NTCA members will proceed to Hill and agency visits Tuesday at 9 a.m., the agenda said.
House Commerce Committee Vice Chairwoman Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., snagged four more GOP co-sponsors Thursday for her partisan net neutrality legislation, now with 49 GOP co-sponsors. Blackburn introduced the latest version of the Internet Freedom Act (HR-1212) at the beginning of March. It would undo the FCC net neutrality order approved in February. New backers include House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions, R-Texas, and Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Martha McSally of Arizona and Gary Palmer of Alabama. The Republican backing for the legislation is far greater than that for a Congressional Review Act resolution of disapproval introduced last week attacking the FCC order.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said he has been in discussions with multiple senators about possible amendments to the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (S-754) that would strengthen the bill’s privacy protections. “There is a good group of senators who have approached us about” working “for additional privacy protections when this bill comes to the floor,” Wyden said during a Friday Christian Science Monitor event. Wyden was the sole vote against S-754 March 17 when the Senate Intelligence Committee voted 14-1 to approve the bill. S-754 and its House companion, the Protecting Cyber Networks Act (HR-1560), would provide liability protections to private sector companies that share cyberthreat information with U.S. intelligence agencies. The House is to vote on HR-1560 and the Department of Homeland Security-centric National Cybersecurity Protection Advancement Act (HR-1731) this week (see 1504160035), with an industry lobbyist telling us Friday that there's a continuing push to have the House Rules Committee marry elements of the two bills. More than 65 cybersecurity groups sent a joint letter Thursday to Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, and the House committees’ ranking members saying they oppose HR-1560, HR-1731 and S-754 because waiving privacy rights isn’t necessary for effective cybersecurity information sharing.
Sens. Tom Carper, D-Del., and Roy Blunt, R-Mo., introduced the Data Security Act (S-961) Thursday, a joint news release said. The legislation is “modeled after the data security and breach-response regime established under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 and subsequent regulations,” the release said, and “builds on existing law to better ensure data security procedures are uniformly applied.” The bipartisan legislation would “better protect consumers from identity theft and account fraud by establishing a clear set of national standards that would help the prevention of and response to data breaches at public and private institutions,” the release said. “Despite the increasing frequency and scope of data breaches, there still is no single federal law that provides clear, consistent, and comprehensive protection to American consumers impacted by a data breach,” Carper said. “Our bipartisan and comprehensive legislation would better serve consumers by ensuring that entities handling secure personal and financial information take the steps necessary to protect it and respond swiftly and effectively in the unfortunate event of a breach,” he said. "As the role of the Internet in Americans' daily lives is constant and evolving, so is the job of protecting and securing private citizens' personal information," Blunt said.
Rep. Norma Torres, D-Calif., introduced a resolution (House Concurrent Resolution-39) Thursday “supporting the goals and ideals of National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week.” The resolution would resolve that Congress backs those goals and ideals and “honors and recognizes the importance and contributions of the Nation’s public safety communications professionals” as well as “encourages the people of the United States to remember the value of the work performed by public safety communications professionals.” It has no co-sponsors and was referred to the Commerce Committee. National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week is held the second full week of April.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., jointly introduced the Breaking Down Barriers to Innovation Act Thursday in a bid to revamp the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to allow for “legitimate” forms of hacking. The bill would exempt circumvention of access controls and technological protection measures for some legitimate purposes from DMCA prohibitions, including for security research, journalism, personal device repair and the development of accessible forms of copyrighted works for the disabled. “The DMCA’s copyright restrictions make us more vulnerable to cyberattacks and stifle innovation,” Wyden said in a news release. “It reforms a bad law that inhibits technological innovation.” Polis said in the news release that the bill “makes sensible reforms to an antiquated law, reforms that will benefit journalism, research, privacy rights, and freedom of expression.” The Library Copyright Alliance said in a statement that the bill would correct issues with the Library of Congress’ current DMCA exceptions rulemaking process by allowing previously granted exemptions to automatically renew every three years. “This would provide greater certainty to libraries, educators and disabled individuals who rely on the exemptions, and would eliminate the burden of reapplying every three years,” LCA said. Public Knowledge Vice President-Legal Affairs Sherwin Siy said in a news release that the Breaking Down Barriers to Innovation Act would “vastly improve” unintentional misuse of the DMCA “by fixing a number of lingering problems with the triennial rulemaking process designed to ease the burden that the law places on lawful users. By ensuring that those requesting exemptions do not need to meet a punishingly high burden of proof, and allowing past granted exemptions to be renewed more easily, the bill makes substantial strides to addressing the process problems that many, including the House IP Subcommittee, have recognized.”