The National Governors Association urged Congress Tuesday to “continue its support for” the Agriculture Department’s connectivity initiatives, including “the Rural Broadband Program, the Community Connect Program, and the Distance Learning and Telemedicine Program” as part of the 2023 farm bill. “These programs, in addition to” broadband funding in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and “the various Covid-relief packages, proved vital for rural communities” during the COVID-19 pandemic and “remain vital today,” NGA said. The House Agriculture Committee eyed codifying and making permanent USDA’s ReConnect program in June as part of the farm bill (see 2306210058).

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., confirmed Friday he plans a Sept. 13 AI forum, the first in a planned series of events to "convene the leading minds in AI, including AI developers, civil rights and worker advocates, researchers, and other key thinkers, to lay a foundation for action" on related issues (see 2308210065). The Sept. 13 forum will reportedly include OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Twitter and X Corp. CEO Elon Musk, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and AFL-CIO President Elizabeth Shuler. "We know there is real bipartisan interest in developing a comprehensive AI framework to give Congress the opportunity to bolster and accelerate AI innovation in a safe and responsible way," Schumer said in a published letter to colleagues. "These forums will build on the longstanding work of our Committees by supercharging the Senate’s typical process so we can stay ahead of AI’s rapid development. This is not going to be easy, it will be one of the most difficult things we undertake, but in the twenty-first century we cannot behave like ostriches in the sand when it comes to AI. We must treat AI with the same level of seriousness as national security, job creation, and our civil liberties." Schumer didn't offer a clear timeline for Senate floor votes expected as soon as this week on FCC nominee Anna Gomez (see 2307280074), but he said the chamber will "continue confirming" President Joe Biden’s "well-qualified nominees." The Senate during the remainder of this year also has an "opportunity to advance legislation ... advancing kids and teens online safety and privacy" (see 2308220057), Schumer said.

Congress “should expedite passage” of the House Commerce Committee-cleared Spectrum Auction Reauthorization Act (HR-3565) and “support additional funding for” the FCC’s affordable connectivity program to make it permanent, NARUC officials said Friday in letters to top lawmakers. HR-3565 faced headwinds on Capitol Hill amid slow progress in negotiations on a spectrum legislative compromise (see 2308070001). The measure “not only extends the FCC’s auction authority, but it also funds two programs critical to your constituents and to national security,” said NARUC President Michael Caron and Telecommunications Committee Chair Tim Schram in a letter to House and Senate leaders and top lawmakers of both chambers’ Commerce panels. HR-3565 would allocate up to $14.8 billion in future auction proceeds for next-generation 911 tech upgrades and give the FCC an additional $3.08 billion to close the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program funding shortfall. The rip-and-replace program is “chronically underfunded” and “federal funding is needed to ensure that all parts of the country have access to advanced, secure, and reliable emergency response systems,” NARUC leaders said. ACP, meanwhile, “has helped more than 19 million households” in the U.S., including “at least 3 million low-income seniors, 400,000 veterans, and more than 3 million students remain online,” Caron and Schram said in a letter to House and Senate leaders and the heads of the chambers’ Commerce and Appropriations committees. “Currently, the program is expected to run out of funds no later than second quarter 2024 and very likely much earlier.” The NARUC leaders referenced a resolution the group passed during its July meeting in Austin backing ACP’s renewal (see 2307190028).

Free Press urged lawmakers to make the FCC’s affordable connectivity program permanent as part of any USF revamp legislation. Congress should “appropriate the funding” for ACP “needed to ensure that low-income households can afford broadband long after the initial appropriation from” the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act “is expended,” FP said in comments to Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., ranking member John Thune, R-S.D., and other USF revamp working group members released Monday. Some other commenters also urged Congress to make ACP permanent, in some cases suggesting it outright replace the Lifeline program (see 2308250064). FP also asked lawmakers and the FCC to “reject the cynical call from some of the nation’s largest businesses to massively lower their own USF contribution burdens by imposing a regressive tax on residential broadband services. These parties have for years falsely warned that the USF contributions system is in a death-spiral,” which “is simply not true. The fact is that the total USF contribution pool in real terms peaked in 2012, and has declined substantially since. While the overall contribution factor percentage has risen, the average residential consumer has seen their contribution burden decline slightly, as the burden borne by large businesses increased slightly.”

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., touted U.S.-based 5G equipment manufacturer JMA Wireless, during a Wednesday tour of its Syracuse, New York, campus as “critical” to countering Chinese efforts to lead in the technology’s development, while defending his votes against the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and 2022 Chips and Science Act. “I don’t want government controlling and picking the winners and losers” in telecom and other technology, McCarthy said during a news conference. "I actually like the private sector, exactly what JMA is doing. It’s their investment of $50 million that created something, and now government can be a partner.” McCarthy, who toured JMA before a Wednesday fundraiser for freshman Rep. Brandon Williams, R-N.Y., said the lawmaker is advising other GOP members on tech issues. Williams is a House Science Committee member. Williams, who won his first House election last year, wasn't in Congress for the IIJA and Chips measure votes. “You want a member that understands technology,” McCarthy said. “Look at what” Williams “was doing in technology and his business before he became a member of Congress. He knows what’s happening.”

The FTC shouldn’t be “colluding” with European regulators to help enforce European laws against American companies on U.S. soil, Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, wrote Chair Lina Khan Tuesday. Cruz is seeking documents on communication between FTC officials and EU officials in their San Francisco office about implementation of the EU’s Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act. “There are no corollary federal laws to the DSA and DMA, making the FTC’s efforts to conspire with foreign regulators against U.S. businesses unprecedented,” said Cruz’s office. He requested accounting records for any FTC employees who traveled to Brussels. The FTC confirmed receiving the letter.

Online marketplaces like Meta, Amazon, Walmart, Target, eBay and TikTok need to do more to remove banned and hazardous products from their platforms, the House Commerce Committee wrote in letters announced Tuesday. Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., signed the letters with ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., and House Consumer Protection Subcommittee Chair Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., and ranking member Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill. At least one platform, Meta, has “fallen short” on its responsibilities for proactively removing products deemed dangerous by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, they wrote. They also sent letters to eBay, TikTok, BikeList, Etsy, Goldin, Kidzen, Marcari, OfferUp, Poshmark, Reverb, Pinduoduo, Alibaba and Shein. They asked for specific details about how the companies are removing products the CPSC has flagged. Meta said in a statement Tuesday: “Like other platforms where people can buy and sell goods, there are instances of people knowingly or unknowingly selling recalled goods on Marketplace. We take this issue seriously and when we find listings that violate our rules, we remove them.”

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, pressed Friday for former Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Christopher Krebs and former Twitter Trust and Safety Head Yoel Roth to submit to transcribed interviews by Sept. 1 as part of the panel’s investigation of the Biden administration’s alleged collusion with social media companies to censor free speech. “We believe that you are uniquely positioned to aid the Committee’s oversight, as you served as the director of [CISA,] which, under your leadership, participated in efforts to unconstitutionally monitor and censor Americans’ speech on social media platforms,” Jordan said in a letter to Krebs, now a cybersecurity consultant. The “investigation, along with other public reporting, and publicized discovery in an ongoing federal court case,” Missouri v. Biden (see 2307250012), “have exposed how the federal government has pressured and colluded with Big Tech and other intermediaries to censor certain viewpoints on social and other media in ways that undermine First Amendment principles,” Jordan wrote Roth, now a University of California-Berkeley tech policy fellow. “As has been well-documented, during your tenure as Head of Trust & Safety, you met with various federal agencies on numerous occasions regarding issues that are relevant to” House Judiciary’s probe. Krebs and Roth didn’t immediately comment.

Sen. Michael Bennet and Rep. Brittany Pettersen, both Colorado Democrats, led filing last week of the Connecting Our Neighbors to Networks and Ensuring Competitive Telecommunications (Connect) Act in a bid to revamp the Agriculture Department’s ReConnect program. The measure would shorten USDA’s deadline for making permitting decisions on department-funded broadband projects from 270 days to 180 days. It would designate rural areas that receive non-wireline broadband service as eligible for ReConnect funding and establish a program-specific Office of Technical Assistance. The bill would create an interagency broadband council to recommend uniform speed and application rules for all federal connectivity programs. Sen. Ted Budd of North Carolina and Rep. Juan Ciscomani of Arizona are the measure’s lead GOP sponsors. “It’s time Washington made federal programs easier to access for small providers -- who are most attuned to the needs of their customers -- and strengthened support for local governments, nonprofit organizations, and cooperatives seeking to provide internet service to rural residents,” Bennet said.

The FTC should investigate whether YouTube violated kids’ privacy law and a 2019 consent decree when the platform tracked children without parental consent, Sens. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., wrote the agency in a letter Thursday. Citing a report from The New York Times and Adalytics, the letter claims the platform facilitated “rampant collection and distribution of children’s data by serving targeted advertising to viewers watching child-directed content.” The platform provided troves of data to data brokers and third parties without consent, they said. Google said in a statement Thursday this is the second time in recent weeks Adalytics published a “deeply flawed and misleading report.” Personalized ads have never been allowed on YouTube Kids, and that policy was expanded in January 2020 to anyone watching made-for-kids content on YouTube, the company said. “The report makes completely false claims and draws uninformed conclusions based solely on the presence of cookies, which are widely used in these contexts for the purposes of fraud detection and frequency capping -- both of which are permitted under” the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, said Google. “The portions of this report that were shared with us didn’t identify a single example of these policies being violated.” The agency confirmed receiving the letter.