The Senate Commerce Committee will try again next week to approve funding for the FCC’s affordable connectivity program (see 2405100046), Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., told us Thursday after the scheduled markup was pulled amid tensions with Republicans over amendments.

Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said Wednesday she's talking to a range of lawmakers seeking potential changes to an amended version of her draft Spectrum and National Security Act after the panel pulled Cantwell’s bill and 12 others from a planned Wednesday markup session Tuesday night (see 2404300072). The potential for the spectrum bill to make it into the bipartisan 2024 FAA Reauthorization Act “got precluded weeks ago,” Cantwell told reporters. The Senate voted 89-10 to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to the FAA bill as a substitute for Securing Growth and Robust Leadership in American Aviation Act (HR-3935). Lawmakers are still eyeing other vehicles for allocating stopgap money to keep the FCC’s ailing affordable connectivity program running through the remainder of the year. Those proposals include a bid from Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, that would attach an amendment to the FAA package appropriating ACP $7 billion (see 2405010055).

Bipartisan legislation introduced Wednesday would direct the National Institute of Standards and Technology to develop standards for companies to identify and disclose AI-generated content. Introduced by Sens. John Thune, R-S.D.; Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.; Roger Wicker, R-Miss.; John Hickenlooper, D-Colo.; Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.; and Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., the AI Research, Innovation and Accountability Act would direct NIST to develop standards for “providing both authenticity and provenance information for online content, similar to the efforts of the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity,” they said. The bill increases transparency for consumers and limits government intervention, said Thune.

Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., and subpanel members from both parties voiced growing frustration during a Tuesday hearing with DOJ’s perceived reticence in enforcing existing anti-robocall statutes and eyed the FCC’s Further NPRM giving consumers more choice on the robocalls and robotexts they will receive (see 2306080043). There was more uneven interest among Senate Communications members and witnesses at the hearing in pursuing additional legislation to address ongoing robocall problems amid those enforcement shortcomings.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., agreed with Microsoft President Brad Smith Tuesday on the need for a federal agency to license high-risk AI systems.

There will be a “structured discussion” about how to regulate AI when Congress returns in September, but the most important thing remains passing privacy legislation, Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said Monday.

The Senate Commerce Committee passed two kids’ privacy bills Thursday, for the second year in a row (see 2211160078 and 2207270057).

Congress hopes to advance comprehensive legislation to regulate AI in a matter of months, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told a Center for Strategic & International Studies event Wednesday.

Once CBP submits its proposal for a new customs modernization law, National Foreign Trade Council Senior Director of International Supply Chain Policy John Pickel says, Congress will dig into how they want to shape the bill. It’s not an easy task to produce a bill with a balance between enforcement and trade facilitation, but that’s Congress’ intention, he said.

Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and other lawmakers emphasized the importance of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy's role in implementing pending “Chips+” U.S. semiconductor manufacturing incentives and a U.S. competitiveness package, during a Wednesday confirmation hearing for OSTP director nominee Arati Prabhakar. The substitute measure that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., filed Tuesday as an amendment to shell bill HR-4346, would supplant conference committee negotiations to marry elements of the dueling America Creating Opportunities for Manufacturing, Pre-Eminence in Technology and Economic Strength Act (HR-4521) and U.S. Innovation and Competition Act (S-1260).