House Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., said Thursday she won’t seek reelection. “After much prayer and reflection, I’ve decided the time has come to serve … in new ways,” she said. “We will spend this year honoring the Committee’s rich history -- plowing the hard ground necessary to legislate on solutions to make people’s lives better and ensure America wins the future,” Rodgers said. She became the lead House Commerce Republican in 2021 after previous panel GOP head Greg Walden of Oregon retired (see 2012020070). Rodgers has had a lead role in many major communications and tech policy debates since succeeding Walden, including as lead sponsor of the House Commerce-cleared Spectrum Auction Reauthorization Act (HR-3565), the panel’s privacy legislative talks and scrutiny of the FCC’s affordable connectivity program (see 2312150068). House Commerce ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., said he's “sad to hear” Rodgers is retiring, but “I’m glad we have about a year left to get some important priorities across the finish line together.” Getting “things done around here is hard work, but Cathy and I have been able to get important legislation” to “move the ball forward on establishing a comprehensive national data privacy standard,” Pallone said. “Her departure will be an incredible loss for Congress, which I know she cares about deeply.” House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Bob Latta, R-Ohio, praised Rodgers’ “guidance and steady, principled leadership": “It would be an understatement to say her work within [House Commerce] has had a profound and positive impact on people and communities across the country." Rodgers’ departure means the House Commerce lead Republican seat for the next Congress is open. Some telecom lobbyists quickly tipped Latta as a likely contender, along with Congressional Spectrum Caucus co-Chair Brett Guthrie of Kentucky. Latta competed against Rodgers and Rep. Michael Burgess of Texas for the House Commerce GOP leadership in 2020 (see 2011180028). Burgess is among 11 other House Commerce members retiring at the end of this Congress. The others: Kelly Armstrong, R-N.D.; Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Del.; Larry Bucshon, R-Ind.; Tony Cardenas, D-Calif.; John Curtis, R-Utah; Jeff Duncan, R-S.C.; Anna Eshoo, D-Calif.; Debbie Lesko, R-Ariz.; Greg Pence, R-Ind.; and John Sarbanes, D-Md. Ex-Rep. Bill Johnson, R-Ohio, was a House Commerce member when he resigned last month to become Youngstown State University president (see 2401020056).

Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., and Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., backed the FCC’s NPRM that would make voice-cloning technology in robocall scams illegal (see 2401310082), telling Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel it’s needed because the use of AI to “impersonate trusted voices threatens to expose ... even greater harm” to consumer confidence in U.S. telecom systems. The FCC issued a cease-and-desist letter and K4 order Tuesday against Texas-based Lingo Telecom over robocalls to voters before the New Hampshire primary last month with an AI-generated voice impersonating President Joe Biden (see 2402060087). “We commend you for moving forward with this proposed Declaratory Ruling to clarify that existing statute already prohibits robocalls using AI-generated voices to wireless customers,” Lujan and Kelly said in a letter to Rosenworcel released Wednesday. “This ruling is particularly important given the increasing ease of access to generative-AI tools. Such tools can be used to clone a person’s voice with high levels of accuracy, and there are alarming cases of this technology being used to harm vulnerable families across the country.” The proposed ruling “is aligned with Congressional intent for the Telephone Consumer Protection Act,” which should empower consumers “to provide consent on whether to receive AI generated calls,” the senators said: The FCC should also “exercise its lawful enforcement authority to stop the use of generative AI for fraudulent misrepresentation, particularly in critical sectors like public safety, election integrity, and consumer protection.”

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., on Tuesday blocked an attempt by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., to approve children’s online safety legislation by unanimous consent. Hawley sought UC for the Stop Children Suffering from Abuse and Mistreatment (Stop CSAM) Act, saying Big Tech won’t stop harming children until it faces liability in court. “This is the only industry in the country that can make a product that will literally kill you, and if it does, you cannot do anything about it," said Hawley. Wyden argued the bill would weaken encryption, which he said is the strongest online protection for children and families, because it would punish companies for offering strong encryption standards. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has separate plans to seek UC for the Stop CSAM Act and four other online safety bills the Senate Judiciary Committee approved (see 2402060084).

National Rural Electric Cooperative Association CEO Jim Matheson urged leaders of the House and Senate Commerce committees Monday night to “provide additional funding” for the FCC’s affordable connectivity program before its original $14.2 billion allocation runs out in April. Lawmakers are eyeing how to allocate as much as $7 billion in stopgap funding to keep ACP running through the end of this year (see 2401250075). FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel confirmed last week that the Wireline Bureau will freeze new ACP enrollments Thursday as part of winding down the program (see 2402010075). “As more cooperatives, and other internet service providers, work to build broadband networks in hard-to-reach rural and low-income areas, affordability will become increasingly critical to adoption of these essential services,” Matheson said in a letter to Senate Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., House Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., and their ranking members. “Should programs supporting affordability fail, it could jeopardize access to broadband services for millions of customers.” Ensuring “that there is a consistent, dependable, and effective low-income broadband program, such as the ACP, will allow rural providers to deliver the highest quality broadband service to their communities at an affordable price,” said Matheson, a former House Commerce member who represented Utah as a Democrat. Enacting the ACP Extension Act (HR-6929/S-3565), which would infuse $7 billion into the program for FY24 (see 2401100056), “or similar legislation would provide important short-term clarity and certainty ... while Congress works to address questions around the future of the program and develop a permanent funding solution.”

Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, raised concerns Thursday with the CPB-funded Independent Television Service (ITVS) about its Diversity Development Fund, which provides grants of up to $35,000 to filmmakers of color to develop documentaries for public media. ITVS reports it has funded 156 films via the diversity fund. “Because white filmmakers are facially ineligible for this seed money, the fund runs afoul of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866,” Cruz told ITVS CEO Carrie Lozano in a letter. “I therefore urge you to remove race as an eligibility criterion for” DDF. ITVS “can surely pursue its mandate to ‘expand the diversity and innovativeness’ of public programming without violating the law,” Cruz said. “Presumably, the goal of this racially exclusive funding opportunity is to further CPB’s directive to aid ‘producers of programs addressing the needs and interests of minorities.’ But programming need not be produced exclusively by minorities to address the needs and interests of minorities. Furthermore, ITVS’s requirement that an applicant ‘[i]dentify as a person of color’ violates federal law.” The fund may also “discriminate based on political ideology,” he said: “The ITVS website features an ‘Impact’ page demonstrating how its documentaries ‘inspir[e] audiences to take action’ on politically charged issues like criminal justice reform. These documentaries overwhelmingly reflect a liberal worldview” and “ITVS funds hardly any documentaries from a conservative perspective. A public organization that costs American taxpayers $17 million a year should not be a vehicle for left-wing agitprop.” Cruz wants Lozano to tell him by Feb. 15 whether ITVS will remove "race as an eligibility criterion” for DDF grants and detail how much money the fund has received since 2014. In addition, he wants more information about how ITVS will inject “objectivity and balance” as it decides on content befitting an entity receiving CPB funding. ITVS didn’t immediately comment. Cruz objected in December to CPB rules for member stations’ diverse workforce policies (see 2312110067). CPB CEO Patricia Harrison countered that the organization’s current and former diversity policies for Community Service Grants recipients “do not require any unlawful employment preferences or quotas” and are “no more discriminatory than the policies for federal agencies with which CPB, as a private corporation, voluntarily complies.”

Senate Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee Chairman Chris Van Hollen, Md.; Sen. Ed Markey, Mass.; and Rep. Grace Meng, N.Y., led a Friday letter with 64 other congressional Democrats supporting the FCC’s proposal permitting schools and libraries to use E-rate support for off-premises Wi-Fi hot spots and wireless internet services (see 2311090028). CTIA endorsed the NPRM in comments filed with the FCC last week, while other industry groups questioned whether the FCC has authority under the Communications Act to expand the E-rate program as proposed (see 2401300063). “This proposal properly recognizes that learning now extends beyond the physical premises of school buildings,” the Democratic lawmakers wrote in the letter to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. “When a sixth grader is completing a homework assignment through an online educational platform or a ninth grader is attending class through a video conferencing application, they are clearly engaged in educational activities.” The Communications Act gives the FCC “flexibility to structure and strengthen the E-Rate program as educational conditions change,” the lawmakers said: “With millions of students at risk of losing internet access at home” should Congress not appropriate additional money for the FCC’s affordable connectivity program before its initial $14.2 billion allocation runs out in April (see 2402010075), “we are glad to see the FCC exercising this authority and modernizing the E-Rate program, and we encourage the Commission to provide schools and libraries with the flexibility to adapt their programs to local conditions while continuing to effectively guard against fraud and waste.” Other Democrats signing the letter included Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico and House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Doris Matsui of California. On the other hand, House Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., and Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, oppose the E-rate NPRM (see 2309270069). The Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition praised the Democratic lawmakers for backing the proposal.

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., signed on Tuesday to the Eyes on the Board Act (S-3074) hoping to limit children's access to social media at school. Under the bill, schools receiving federal E-rate and emergency connectivity fund money must block access to distracting and addictive social media apps or websites on subsidized services, devices and networks. Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz of Texas and two other Republicans filed the measure in October (see 2310180042). It would require schools receiving ECF and E-rate funding to limit screen time, similar to what the Children’s Internet Protection Act already requires. In addition, it would mandate an FCC-created database of schools’ internet safety policies. “Social media is a powerful tool, but spending too much time on it can significantly hurt anybody’s well-being,” Fetterman said in a statement from Senate Commerce Republicans. “It even contributed to my own mental health struggles. Cyberbullying and online harassment are real. We need to make sure that at school, our children are focused on learning, and E-rate will do just that.” Cruz praised Fetterman Tuesday for joining “this bipartisan effort to protect kids in the classroom and give parents information with the transparency needed to know that their children are safe.”

The IRS is not complying with the federal ban on TikTok, Sens. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and John Thune, R-S.D., said Tuesday. Some 2,800 devices registered to IRS Criminal Investigation employees as well as IRS computers have access, they said. The Chinese-owned social media app was banned from federal devices in December 2022, when President Joe Biden signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act, which included the No TikTok on Government Devices Act. A report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found “devices used by certain IRS employees can access TikTok,” they wrote in a letter to IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel. This potentially exposes information about American taxpayers to the Chinese Communist Party, which has access to TikTok's internal data, they said. The IRS didn't comment.

Senate Commerce Committee members Deb Fischer, R-Neb., and John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., urged Congress Monday to advance their Defend Our Networks Act (S-1245), closing a $3.08 billion funding gap for the FCC's Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program. Filed last year, the bill would reallocate 3% of unspent and unobligated funding from the FY 2021 appropriations omnibus, the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act and other COVID-19 aid packages to make up rip-and-replace's deficit (see 2304210069). Other lawmakers are eyeing directly appropriating the funding amid stalled work on a spectrum legislative package that some hoped could use future FCC auction revenue to repay a proposed loan (see 2311070050). Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., recently proposed paying for rip and replace by authorizing the FCC to reauction the 197 AWS-3 licenses that Dish and affiliated designated entities returned to the agency last year after it denied them $3.3 billion in bidding credits (see 2401240001). “Nearly all of the 85 companies that received approval by the FCC for costs to rip and replace the untrusted equipment are still waiting for their full federal reimbursement,” Fischer and Hickenlooper said in an opinion piece in The Hill. “Communications providers, many of them smaller companies, can’t pay to replace these technologies without help.” Absent more federal funding, “they’ll either refrain from ripping it out or will be forced to shut down parts or all of their networks,” the senators wrote: “We need telecom companies to remove China’s surveillance infrastructure [from cell towers] and replace it with secure equipment, but we can’t force these critical businesses to go broke in the process.” They cited China's spy balloons flying over the U.S. last year as a “sobering surveillance threat. The urgency of its removal cannot be understated.”

Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines should direct intelligence agencies to limit purchases of data about Americans when collection of the data meets FTC standards, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., wrote in a letter Thursday. Wyden released documents he said confirm that the NSA “buys Americans’ internet records, which can reveal which websites they visit and what apps they use.” He noted the FTC issued a recent order (see 2401090081) holding “that data brokers must obtain Americans’ informed consent before selling their data.” The federal government shouldn’t be “funding and legitimizing a shady industry whose flagrant violations of Americans’ privacy are not just unethical, but illegal,” Wyden wrote. “To that end, I request that you adopt a policy that, going forward, IC elements may only purchase data about Americans that meets the standard for legal data sales established by the FTC.” He urged the DNI to direct agencies to inventory purchased data, determine whether it meets FTC standards, and purge whatever doesn’t. DNI didn’t comment.