The House Commerce Committee took its first steps at naming GOP members beyond the chairman. The office of incoming Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., released a list Friday of 13 others from his party who will be new members of the full committee. Many are new faces to telecom, industry officials and lobbyists said. They said that poses challenges to the communications and high-tech industries, which will have to quickly get members up to speed, and also an opportunity to lobby them.

CTIA will oppose any effort to strengthen wireless rules in the FCC’s net neutrality proposal, President Steve Largent told reporters Friday. Besides net neutrality and spectrum, taxation is a 2011 priority for the group, CTIA officials said.

The dispute involving Comcast, Level 3 and Netflix heralds Internet “management crises” that may not be resolved until Congress enacts permanent net neutrality rules, Stifel Nicolaus analyst Rebecca Arbogast said Friday. There’s a divide over whether it’s a peering dispute -- the position of Comcast and allies -- or a content-discrimination dispute, as Level 3, Netflix and allies say, she told a Practising Law Institute event. “The fact is, it’s both.” Another panelist, from Google, worried about lawsuits over however the FCC proceeds on net neutrality rules. Commissioner Robert McDowell said later that he shares those worries.

LightSquared shot back in FCC filings at companies and wireless associations opposing its ancillary terrestrial component license modification application now being considered by the International Bureau. The bureau should move forward and approve the modification through adjudication, LightSquared said. Critics have said the modification would mean a significant change to mobile satellite services/ATC policy (CD Dec 6 p7). LightSquared, which plans to lease out its spectrum wholesale, recently said its business plans would allow retailers the choice to offer devices that don’t connect to satellite. MSS/ATC licensees are currently required to only offer devices able to connect to both satellite and terrestrial services. The filings are at http://xrl.us/bh969f.

Familiar faces to the communications industry may have key posts on the House Communications Subcommittee and the full Commerce Committee next Congress, after Democrats decide on ranking members and Republicans pick a subcommittee chairman, said industry lobbyists watching the races. Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., is seen by many lobbyists and a Capitol Hill aide as having the best chance to be named chairman of the subcommittee. Outgoing Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., is said to be very likely to become the ranking member of the full committee. And possible competition is shaping up for the ranking member of the subcommittee.

The House Democratic Caucus voted Thursday to reject President Barack Obama’s tax deal with Republicans in its current form. It was unclear how much the package may need to change. Telecom and tech groups urged passage of the package, citing provisions of the proposal that they said would encourage R&D and investment.

BALTIMORE -- Asking the government to require FM tuners in cellphones, as the NAB has done, “brands” the radio industry as “desperate” for a bailout, CEA President Gary Shapiro said Thursday at the Arbitron-Jacobs Media Summit. Shapiro, who in the summer will mark his 20th year at the CEA’s helm, has no plans to run for public office, he told us at the conference.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski appears to be using Qwest-CenturyLink merger conditions as a “trick shot” way of regulating broadband without reclassifying the service, Cardozo Law Professor Susan Crawford, a former Obama administration telecom adviser, said Thursday. “He’s going to try to get through merger conditions what another regulator would try to get through regulatory authority,” she said.

A commissioner from each party offered a divergent view on whether the agency can act on the net neutrality order set for a Dec. 21 vote. Speaking at a Practising Law Institute conference in Washington Thursday, Democratic Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said FCC action on net neutrality offers the speed and flexibility that a legislative solution simply can’t offer. GOP Commissioner Meredith Baker said the agency is “not empowered to regulate the Internet.” Baker’s views against the net neutrality draft that Chairman Julius Genachowski circulated last week have been well known, while Clyburn has been thought to be generally supportive of it (CD Dec 8 p1) but hadn’t said very much publicly in recent days on the issue.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Pandora will push to sell more local ads next year, working with partners in various markets who already have local sales teams, Brian Mikalis, vice president of performance sales for the online music streamer, told a BIA/Kelsey conference Wednesday. “We're aggressively talking to companies that do have feet on the street to allow them to include Pandora as part of their” local ad network, he said. “It’s a new strategy and we've done some testing in the last three to four months, but in 2011 you'll see a lot more.”