The House would cut the broadband loans program at the Rural Utilities Service under fiscal 2012 budget legislation moving through the Appropriations Committee. The panel’s Agriculture Subcommittee late Tuesday approved an agriculture bill that counts the RUS program among its cuts. House Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., slammed the proposed cut. USTelecom and the NTCA supported giving $22 million to the loans program under an amendment submitted by Rep. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo. At our deadline, the subcommittee voted not to adopt the Lummis amendment.

Industry groups seek carve-outs for broadband and other advanced communications services (ACS) from disabilities accessibility legislation passed last year, while advocates for those with trouble seeing want exemptions to be few and narrow. Replies posted Tuesday in FCC docket 10-213 picked up on the theme of initial comments on the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CD April 27 p7), where industry sought flexibility. The CEA, NCTA and others said the commission must not further regulate services whose primary function isn’t ACS, while the videogame industry’s lobbying group sought a blanket exemption for its products. Seven advocacy groups for the deaf and others said the act shouldn’t be curtailed, regardless of calls to do so.

Leap Wireless/Cricket Tuesday formally opposed AT&T’s buy of T-Mobile. But the merger got key support from Microsoft the same day, the first high tech company to back the deal publicly. Microsoft supports the deal, said Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith at a Tuesday event at the company’s new office in Washington. “We see it as a step toward building out broadband capability and capacity,” Smith told reporters. Microsoft Windows mobile software runs on at least eight current mobile phone models and the company has device partnerships with both AT&T and T-Mobile, a spokeswoman said.

EchoStar relinquished its five 17/24 GHz reverse band FCC authorizations Tuesday in an effort to rebut an FCC presumption of the company as using authorizations for speculation, FCC filings show. The surrendered authorizations are meant to clear the way at the FCC for EchoStar’s purchase of Hughes Communications, a $2 billion transaction currently being reviewed at the agency. No filings opposing the deal were made in that proceeding, though the agency did request additional satellite deployment plans in relation to the purchase, an EchoStar filing said. Although the company gave up the five authorizations, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have future plans using the reverse band, an industry executive said.

The first priority of the newly reconstituted Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee will be the government’s “search” for 500 MHz of spectrum for wireless broadband, according to the group’s draft work program. The new CSMAC meets for the first time Wednesday at the Department of Commerce.

For the second month in a row, the FCC won’t take on any high-profile issues at its monthly meeting. The agenda for the June 9 open meeting lists four items, none likely to excite much attention (CD May 23 p6). The May meeting’s agenda was similarly light (CD May 13 p 9).

The release of the White House proposed cybersecurity legislation is a very important step in protecting critical infrastructure, said Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, at a hearing Monday. “If we don’t do something soon, the Internet is going to be a digital Dodge City,” he said. “Cyberspace is just too important in modern life for us to sit back and allow that to happen.” The White House plan is similar to the Cybersecurity and Internet Freedom Act he introduced in February, he said. “Where there are differences, I think we can work together to find agreement.” The cyber arena “is where the biggest gap exists between the threat level and vulnerabilities and our level of preparedness,” said ranking member Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. “Unfortunately, the government’s overall approach to cybersecurity has been disjointed and uncoordinated to date.” Comprehensive cybersecurity legislation is more urgent than ever, she said.

More NBC-owned TV stations will seek local news sharing partnerships with nonprofit online news organizations, under the company’s local news commitments it made when Comcast acquired control of NBCUniversal from GE. The partnerships will be modeled on KNSD-TV San Diego’s relationship with voiceofsandiego.org, NBC said. Monday, it published requests for proposals from nonprofit news organizations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Washington, and Hartford-New Haven, Conn., it said.

Congress should be vague in legislation authorizing voluntary incentive auctions at the FCC, said commission and outside economists and consultants at a Technology Policy Institute lunch Monday. While the economists opposed forcing broadcasters and other holders to give up their spectrum, they said it’s not a good idea also to make the repacking process voluntary. Some urged the FCC to address competition in auction rules due to increasing consolidation in the wireless industry.

The FCC needs to take “extraordinary measures” to address the need for deployment and use of spectrum on tribal lands, the National Tribal Telecommunications Association (NTTA) said in comments on an NPRM on that topic, released by the FCC in March. The NTTA was the only tribal group to file comments before last week’s deadline. Only eight commenters filed last week in docket 11-40.