John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy under President Barrack Obama, is questioning the direction of the office under President Donald Trump. Holdren emailed his response Tuesday to our questions from last week (see 1801180055). “Most of what OSTP has been doing, as best I can tell, has been about a few areas in technology with wholly obvious connections to the economy,” Holdren said. He listed spectrum, artificial intelligence, drones and self-driving cars. Holdren noted no positions requiring Senate confirmation are filled. “There are a few scientists among the 40-45 staff there now, but not many, and they’re not poking their heads above the trenches,” he said. “There has been little if any indication that anybody now at OSTP has been in a position to make the case to [Office of Management and Budget] or the West Wing that science is the foundation on which technological advances are built, as well as a major source of understanding about what technological advances are needed, for what purposes.” If OSTP hadn't been created by statute, the Harvard Kennedy School professor guesses Trump would “rename it the Office of Technology Policy.”

President Donald Trump plans to nominate acting FTC Chairman Maureen Ohlhausen as a judge on the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, the White House announced Tuesday evening. Trump announced in October that he planned to nominate Paul Weiss antitrust lawyer Joseph Simons as FTC chairman, raising new questions about how long Ohlhausen would choose to remain (see 1710190001 and 1710190055). The White House has yet to formally submit nominations for Simons and two other intended nominees to the FTC -- former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Assistant Director Rohit Chopra and Noah Phillips, chief counsel to Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas -- to the Senate. Ohlhausen said she will remain at the FTC until the Senate confirms her to the judgeship.

The credit outlook this year for cable and telecom infrastructure companies remains stable, but wireline and wireless companies have a negative outlook, S&P Global Ratings said in a news release Monday. It said recent tax changes will help the balance sheets of some U.S. cable and telco operators, and the big issues facing the wireless sector are pricing and competition, while for wireline it's accelerating revenue declines and for cable it's the growth of over-the-top services. It said 5G could be a future threat for cable.

It's time for Facebook and Google to pay publishers carriage fees "similar to the model adopted by cable companies," News Corp Executive Chairman Rupert Murdoch said Monday. Amid "much discussion about subscription models," there hasn't been a proposal "that truly recognizes the investment in and the social value of professional journalism," Murdoch said, and he plans to "closely follow" Facebook's latest shift in its news feed (see 1801120030). News publishers are "obviously enhancing the value and integrity of Facebook through their news and content but are not being adequately rewarded for those services," Murdoch said. Facebook and Google didn't comment.

FirstNet scored its final opt-in as Northern Mariana Islands Gov. Ralph Torres (R) agreed Friday to AT&T’s radio-access-network plan, the authority said in a news release. The decision completed AT&T’s clean sweep of all 56 states and territories (see 1712290021).

Comments are due at the FCC March 19 on ISP transparency rule disclosures adopted in the "internet freedom" order, said a notice in the Federal Register Thursday. The commission estimated 1,919 ISP respondents would take a total of 49,894 hours to meet their disclosure duties at a total annual cost of $560,000. The information-collection requirements are subject to Paperwork Reduction Act provisions and must be approved by the Office of Management and Budget before FCC actions rolling back network neutrality regulations can take effect. The FCC ruling and orders in docket 17-108 were adopted by commissioners Dec. 14 and released Jan. 4 (see 1712140039 and 1801050031).

An FCC Lifeline plan "jeopardizes over 12 million low-income Americans' access to telephone services," and "threatens" program support for broadband access, said a National Association for the Advancement of Colored People "action alert" posted Friday in docket 11-42. Asking people to file comments in the proceeding, the NAACP provided a sample letter urging the FCC to reject "draconian proposals." Comments are due Wednesday and replies Feb. 23 on a Further NPRM and notice of inquiry adopted Nov. 16 and released in a Dec. 1 text with an order (see 1712010042) and 1711160021). The National Hispanic Media Coalition asked the FCC for an eight-week comment extension. It "would be prudent" to delay the due dates, "given the enormous impact that this proceeding could have on the Lifeline program and individuals who rely on the program for their vital communications needs, and in particular the millions of Americans still reeling from hurricanes in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands who are struggling to connect to basic necessities like water and electricity, let alone communications services," said an NHMC motion posted Thursday.

The FCC net neutrality repeal "is well crafted" and "should fare well" in court, said Raymond James analyst Frank Louthan in an investor note Thursday after hosting a telecom policy symposium in Washington. He said judges gave the prior FCC "significant" deference on its decisions, and "the current FCC should be given the same to adjust the rules." Even if a Congressional Review Act resolution to disapprove the current FCC order passes the Senate, it's unlikely to pass the House or be signed into law by President Donald Trump, Louthan wrote. "[T]he CRA actions and future similar stunts are unlikely to be effective and the legal appeal should be the final word in this chapter," he said. "The longer-term impact over the net neutrality fight is how it poisons the well for other potential telecom legislation in Congress for the foreseeable future." Louthan was skeptical of "meaningful infrastructure investment" taking place this year, despite FCC and congressional efforts. Democratic and Republican lawmakers "could serve the public if they actually worked together to forge a net neutrality compromise," blogged CCMI telecom consultant Andrew Regitsky, who also doubted CRA disapproval. "However, it should be pretty clear to most Americans by now that members of both political parties care mostly about being re-elected and getting majorities for their party. Any public benefits that arise during this self-serving process appear purely coincidental." Web "giants" are trying to preserve their regulatory advantage by joining, through the Internet Association, legal challenges to the FCC order, blogged Free State Foundation senior fellow Theodore Bolema. "Regardless of how much Internet Association members like Google and Amazon may claim they want to bring back 'net neutrality' to protect consumers, a significant impact of their actions is to try to re-impose regulation to protect themselves from ISP competition," he wrote. "If they succeed, the result will be to keep more stringent regulations on their ISP competitors. To the extent that regulation of providers of services in the Internet ecosystem is needed, it at least should be a somewhat uniform enforcement regime, not one so disparate that ISPs are regulated in a much more heavy-handed manner than Internet web giants."

Form letters and fraudulent filings undermined the public comment process in the FCC net neutrality rulemaking (see 1708030054), said Jack Karsten and Darrell West, research analyst and vice president at the Center for Technology and Innovation. "Agencies do not base their decisions on the number of comments arguing for or against a rule," they blogged for the Brookings Institution Thursday. A "high number of false comments may lead agencies to discount public comments altogether. The same digital tools that empower concerned citizens also enables individuals and groups to flood the system with fabricated comments." They suggested requiring "commenters to verify their identity, or at least verify they are human." Another approach would automate the search for spam comments, "pitting spam bots against spam filters," they wrote. "However, the filtering out of fraudulent comments should [not be] used [to] discourage authentic commentary from interested individuals. Creating a universal, easy-to-use interface for public comments would increase participation without diminishing the quality of comments."

The FCC Wireless Bureau approved transfer of spectrum licenses from Straight Path Spectrum to Verizon, giving the buyer a larger toehold in the high-frequency spectrum important to 5G. The Competitive Carriers Association sought to block the deal (see 1708110051). The licenses include 735 millimeter wave spectrum licenses in the 39 GHz band, 133 licenses in the local multipoint distribution service bands at 28, 29 and 31 GHz, nine common carrier point-to-point microwave licenses and one nonexclusive nationwide license in the 3650-3700 MHz band. Verizon got Straight Path and the licenses last year after a bidding war with AT&T and needed approval for the license transfers (see 1705170012). “After carefully evaluating the likely public interest effects of the proposed transfer, we find that the likelihood of any public interest harms arising from the transfer is low,” said the order, released Thursday. “Verizon’s post-transaction spectrum holdings across the 28 GHz and 39 GHz bands do not raise particular competitive concerns in light of the current state of the marketplace as well as the recent availability of additional millimeter wave (mmW) spectrum.”