Sens. John Thune, R-S.D., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., introduced the Digital Goods and Services Tax Fairness Act Tuesday, a joint news release said. The bill would “prevent discriminatory and duplicative taxes on digital goods and services, including online downloads of music, literature, movies, mobile apps, and cloud computing services,” it said. “The bill prohibits state and local governments from applying taxes to those products that do not apply to similar tangible goods, as currently in statute as part of the Internet Tax Freedom Act,” said the release. “Federal laws have not kept up with the fast-growing and ever-changing digital marketplace, resulting in outdated rules that could allow a single transaction to be taxed by multiple jurisdictions,” Thune said. “The legislation says that when the legitimate taxes are imposed on a digital product, it can only be imposed on the final customer or end user,” it said. “Without this provision, the retailer in one state can be taxed on a product or service as can the consumer in another state.”
CTIA Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Scott Bergmann pushed back against some of FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s testimony in hearings in the last week. “Since investment in the wireless voice market flourished under a form of common carrier regulation, the Chairman reasons, why not impose similar regulations on wireless broadband?” Bergmann said in a Tuesday blog post. “The Chairman’s reasoning fails for a variety of reasons.” The real wireless market flourishing occurred not in 1993, at the time of that Communications Act Title II designation, but in 2002 and 2003, Bergmann argued, saying: “In 2002 the FCC -- relying on statutory authority -- first declared broadband to be exempt from common carrier regulation, and in 2003 the carriers began deploying wireless broadband networks in that deregulated environment.” Bergmann backed a bigger role for Congress: “If Congress’s long-standing, bi-partisan de-emphasis on Title II regulation is to be jettisoned (and we think it shouldn’t be), that is a call for Congress to make.”
“All 16 members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee” sent a letter Tuesday to President Barack Obama and 10 agency heads, including FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez, urging them to “expeditiously nominate permanent inspectors general (IGs),” said a release from Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis. “The absence of permanent, Senate-confirmed or agency-appointed inspectors general in these positions significantly diminishes the ability of [offices of] IGs to perform thorough and independent oversight,” Johnson said. “If we expect these offices to meet their missions and get results, they must have permanent leadership in place,” said ranking member Thomas Carper, D-Del.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., introduced the Unlocking Technology Act Tuesday. Her office released the text of the six-page bill, which has the backing of Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Jared Polis, D-Colo. “It’s simple -- you should be free to unlock the mobile devices and media you legally purchase,” Lofgren said in a statement. “If consumers are not violating copyright or other law, there's little reason to hold back the many benefits of unlocking." The legislation would “permanently restore consumers' freedom to switch wireless carriers,” Polis said.
Two senior House Republicans see the start of net neutrality litigation (see 1503230066) as reason for Congress to step in. “The inevitable legal wrangling has begun,” said Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich. in a joint statement Tuesday. “These filings are the first in what will undoubtedly be years of challenges spurred by the FCC’s unnecessary and inappropriate regulation of the Internet.” They circulated draft legislation to codify net neutrality protections at the expense of FCC authority. “Congress has the opportunity to change this poorly-chosen course and enact durable solutions that protect consumers,” they said.
The House Republican Study Committee (RSC) embraced the net neutrality vision of House Commerce Committee Vice Chairwoman Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. The committee, representing a conservative caucus within the GOP, released a 110-page Blueprint for a Balanced Budget document this week, saying “Congress should repeal the [FCC]’s February 26, 2015 rule reclassifying broadband Internet access as a telecommunication service under Title II of the Communications Act,” basing the idea explicitly on Blackburn’s Internet Freedom Act (HR-1212). House Republican Study Committee Chairman Bill Flores, R-Texas, is an original co-sponsor among HR-1212’s 43 GOP backers. The RSC budget proposal for FY 2016 also would repeal the USF, suggesting a Congressional Budget Office-predicted savings of $96 billion over the coming decade: “Unfortunately, the programs run by the fund -- including the LifeLine program that provides free government-subsidized cell phones -- are too often fraught with waste, fraud, and abuse.” The Lifeline program doesn't give away free cellphones. The RSC proposal also calls for passage of the Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act and for a reduction of government competition with the private sector, slamming the Obama administration “encouraging local governments to offer broadband Internet service, overriding state laws through regulation and offering incentives in the tax code.” Flores and RSC Budget and Spending Task Force Chairman Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind., claimed credit for the proposal, which they say will balance the budget in six years. Republicans and Democrats on the House Budget Committee are considering warring proposals. Telecom issues also arose last week during a markup session that cleared the House Budget Committee’s GOP proposal. Rep. Donald Norcross, D-N.J., had offered an amendment backed by several other Democrats that would have supported infrastructure investment. It would have found that “the federal government has played a critical role in the development of America’s infrastructure,” including “telephone networks” and “the development of the Internet” and would have included the sense that Congress should “work to ensure that Americans enjoy increased access to high-speed broadband internet services.” It failed in a 14-21 party-line vote.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, highlighted his net neutrality stance in announcing a presidential campaign Monday. The Commerce Committee member has been outspoken in his concerns about net neutrality rules and Communications Act Title II reclassification of broadband service. Cruz “led the fight against regulating the Internet as a public utility because it threatens the Internet as a haven for entrepreneurial freedom and unlimited opportunity,” he said on his campaign website, launched Monday. He provided a link to his November op-ed lambasting what he judged regulation of the Internet. Cruz harangued FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler at an oversight hearing last week, considering the idea of legislation codifying Title II forbearance and calling the agency’s net neutrality order contrary to law (see 1503180055).
How Internet of Things device makers are addressing privacy and security issues and the role IoT devices have in “strengthening the U.S. economy and improving the quality of life for consumers” will be the subject of a hearing Tuesday by the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade, said a memo from the committee's majority staff.
House Intelligence Committee ranking member Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said he believes “the vast majority of the privacy issues” raised in advance of the committee’s expected release this week of its version of cybersecurity information sharing legislation “have been met and we will still have a product that is effective to counter these attacks.” His comments came during a C-SPAN Newsmakers interview that was shown Sunday. The bill House Intelligence is to release will mirror much of what’s contained in the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (S-754), Schiff said. Senate Intelligence cleared S-754 March 13 and released the postmarkup text of the bill last week, with the revised bill’s text drawing criticism from privacy groups (see 1503190058). Schiff said the situation has changed from last year, when “we were far apart on key issues and concerns in the privacy community.” There’s broader agreement on the need to remove personally identifiable information (PII) from cyberthreat data shared with the government, which “gives me confidence that we can move forward on a bill,” Schiff said. Meanwhile, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, circulated a discussion draft Friday of his National Cybersecurity Protection Advancement Act, which would make the Department of Homeland Security the “primary interface” for private sector-to-government cyber information sharing. The bill doesn’t prohibit the private sector from sharing information via other agencies, including the National Security Agency. The bill includes guidelines for DHS monitoring and oversight of the sharing program and includes a mechanism for the department to end sharing with a specific company if it repeatedly fails to strip out PII. The bill would also rename DHS’ National Protection and Programs Directorate as the “Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection Directorate.”
NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield objected to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s remarks at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing (see 1503180055) about the struggle to find “accord” among rate-of-return telcos. “It was too much to bear,” Bloomfield said in a Thursday blog post. “NTCA has been working in close collaboration for the past three years with" several rural local exchange carrier (RLEC) stakeholders "to develop, file and discuss repeatedly with the commissioners and staff alike a carefully constructed, targeted proposal aimed at solving a fundamental policy problem that undermines broadband choice for millions of consumers. It’s the very data-only proposal referenced earlier in the hearing. And the record before the Commission reveals striking consensus among all RLECs with respect to the targeted update proposal that has been put forward by this industry.” Bloomfield and her colleagues sent a note to the FCC and Capitol Hill Thursday that “details the record of consensus on this course of action that has been established over the past three years,” she said.