Senate Public Works Committee ranking member Shelly Moore Capito, R-W.Va., and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., refiled the Rural Broadband Protection Act (S-275) Wednesday to change FCC vetting rules for participants in USF high-cost programs. S-275, first filed last year (see 2205030031), would require the FCC to launch a rulemaking to "establish a vetting process” for USF high-cost applicant ISPs, including requiring them to provide “sufficient detail and documentation for the Commission to ascertain that the applicant possesses the technical capability, and has a reasonable plan, to deploy the proposed network.” The FCC would be required to evaluate new applications based on “reasonable and well-established technical standards,” including those the commission adopted for its Form 477 Data Program “for purposes of entities that must report broadband availability coverage.” The legislation “expands on my broadband efforts, and is a product of many discussions I’ve had with small rural service providers and local leaders in my state,” Capito said. “These discussions made it abundantly clear the FCC needs congressional direction to ensure taxpayer money is being used properly to fund broadband deployment in rural areas.” In 2023 “we should be able to bring high-speed internet to every community in our country, regardless of their zip code,” Klobuchar said: “This bipartisan legislation will help Americans connect to work, school, health care and business opportunities by ensuring the companies that apply for federal funding to build out broadband infrastructure can get the job done.” Capito’s office cited support from NTCA and USTelecom.

The House Commerce Committee voice voted Thursday to adopt its oversight plan for this Congress. Democrats unsuccessfully attempted to expand the scope of the committee’s oversight plan on communications policy, including on broadband affordability and public safety communications. Panel Republicans have been eyeing more rigorous oversight of the FCC and broadband now that they're in the majority (see 2210310073). The plan calls for FCC oversight that will include “efforts to reverse the reclassification” of broadband “as a telecommunications service subject to” Communications Act Title II “and efforts to bring transparency and accountability to the Commission’s processes.” House Commerce “will continue to conduct oversight of the FCC’s decisions and their impact on innovation and the U.S. economy,” including “the impact generally of FCC actions on voice, video, audio, and data services, public safety, broadband mapping, and security of our networks,” the plan said. The committee “will also focus its oversight efforts on the Commission’s administration of” the Affordable Connectivity Program and Emergency Connectivity Fund “and investigate … cases of waste, fraud, and abuse.” NTIA oversight will focus on the agency’s “administration of broadband grant programs created” in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act “and efforts to bring transparency and accountability to NTIA’s processes,” the plan said. House Commerce “will also look into NTIA’s authorities and determine whether NTIA needs additional authorities to keep pace with the advancement of modern technology and the advancement of the communications marketplace.” FTC oversight will include examining “the impact of its decisions and actions on the general public and the business community, with a particular focus on how the FTC conducts its business while not creating undue burdens for legitimate businesses, its determination of priorities, and the need, if any, for refinement of its authorities,” the plan said. House Commerce “will explore the FTC’s role relative to emerging technologies and sectors of the economy. Additionally, the Committee will examine how the agency is utilizing specific bureaus, or lack thereof, including the Bureau of Economics, while pursuing enforcement and regulatory action." There's "this overwhelming sense that government is making lives harder for people," said House Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash. "Our oversight work will inform how we hold the Biden administration accountable." The committee "will do the hard work of reclaiming Congress’s Article I authority to reauthorize expired programs that are running on autopilot," she said. Although "there are some areas that are ripe for bipartisan collaboration, I’m disappointed to say that this Republican” oversight plan “outlines clear intentions to undermine the tremendous progress we made last Congress,” said House Commerce ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., and House Ways and Means Tax Subcommittee Chairman Mike Kelly, R-Pa., led refiling Thursday of the Broadband Grant Tax Treatment Act in a bid to ensure broadband funding from the Infrastructure Investment Jobs Act, American Rescue Plan Act and Tribal Broadband Connectivity Fund doesn’t count as taxable income. The measure, first filed last year (see 2209290067), would amend the Internal Revenue Code to say broadband grants enacted via either statute don’t count as “gross income.” Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., and Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-Calif., are lead co-sponsors. There have been “significant strides to ensure that access to high-speed internet is available to more Americans than ever,” Warner said. “But taxing broadband investment awards diminishes our efforts. This legislation ensures that individuals and businesses are able to reap the benefits of every dollar set aside for broadband expansion and deployment so that we can accomplish our goal of bringing reliable broadband to every corner of Virginia.” The measure “ensures federal grant dollars, especially those made available to local governments through pandemic relief funding, will give constituents the best return on their investment,” Kelly said. Warner’s office noted several telecom industry groups back the measure, including the Competitive Carriers Association, CTIA, Incompas, NTCA and USTelecom, the Wireless ISP Association and WTA.

A trio of top Democrats on the House and Senate Commerce committees refiled the Protecting Community Television Act Thursday in a bid to ensure continued resources for public, educational and governmental programming (see 2001210064). The measure, first filed in 2020, would undo the FCC’s 2019 cable TV local franchise authority order (see 1908010011). PCTA's sponsors -- Sens. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Rep. Anna Eshoo of California -- believe the 2019 order would treat cable operators' in-kind contributions required by LFAs as franchise fees and subject to a cap. "At a time when cable news and media have become more consolidated than ever before, we must work to uphold local access to" PEG channels "for every household in our country," Markey said: Community TV is "a service which millions of Americans rely on to keep up with the news that matters most to them, stay plugged into enriching, educational programming, and hold their local governments to account." The FCC's adoption of the LFA order under then-Chairman Ajit Pai has "hurt public, educational, and governmental television, and this harms communities," Eshoo said: PCTA will "reverse these harmful agency actions and protect community television by ensuring local voices have the platform they deserve.” The lawmakers noted backing from the Alliance for Community Media, MassAccess, National Association of Counties, National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors and National League of Cities.

House Communications Subcommittee member Rep. Angie Craig, D-Minn., was assaulted in her Washington, D.C., apartment building Thursday morning, her office said. She "defended herself from the attacker and suffered bruising, but is otherwise physically okay,” Nick Coe, her chief of staff, said in a statement. "There is no evidence that the incident was politically motivated.” Craig told police the assailant followed her onto an elevator from the building lobby. He punched her on the chin and grabbed her by the neck, a D.C. Metropolitan Police Department report said. Craig said she threw hot coffee on the man, who then fled the scene. Craig “is grateful to” DCMPD “for their quick response and asks for privacy at this time,” Coe said. Craig joined the subcommittee in 2021 (see 2101150069).

Fight for the Future and 39 other groups urged the Senate Thursday to confirm FCC nominee Gigi Sohn “before the end of March,” saying “there are several things that the FCC could do to protect the safety and rights of people seeking, providing, and facilitating abortion care. But they can’t do any of them until the commission is fully staffed” with a 3-2 Democratic majority. Sohn, whom President Joe Biden renominated in January, is to testify at a Tuesday Senate Commerce Committee confirmation hearing (see 2302080043). It will be her third appearance before the panel, after the Senate stalled on confirming her in 2021 and 2022. “The Biden administration’s priorities, including restoring net neutrality and enacting privacy rules, have stalled for over two years,” the pro-Sohn groups said. “In that time, telecom giants and Big Tech have only scaled up their collection and retention of an astonishingly unnecessary amount of customer data, including the locations and search histories of individual people.” The Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson last year, which overturned the existing Roe v. Wade finding of a constitutional right to abortion, means the U.S.’ “lack of constitutional privacy protections now enables the mass-scale tracking and criminalization of those seeking abortion healthcare,” the groups said: “Location data from cell phones can be used as evidence to prosecute those who travel out of state to get an abortion.” The FCC’s current 2-2 split “enables a data free-for-all on our mobile devices,” the groups said. “At a time when core privacy rights are being challenged and in some cases decimated, a kneecapped FCC is the last problem we should have.”

The House Innovation Subcommittee passed several TikTok data security bills and others Tuesday (see 2302070067). HR-750, HR-742, HR-784 and HR-813 passed by voice vote. HR-752 passed 19-0.

Congress should pass legislation barring social media companies from collecting data on children and teens, banning targeted advertising for children and establishing tighter restrictions on personal data collection, President Joe Biden said Tuesday during his State of the Union address. Social media companies should be held accountable for the “experiment they are running on our children for profit,” he said. Biden urged Congress to pass legislation to “strengthen antitrust enforcement and prevent big online platforms from giving their own products an unfair advantage.” The first step in protecting children’s privacy is to pass comprehensive legislation that sets a national privacy standard, said House Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash.: “If President Biden truly wants to promote Big Tech transparency and accountability, protect our kids, and strengthen privacy protections for Americans, he should join Energy and Commerce's bipartisan efforts to enact comprehensive data privacy legislation.” Ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., said he's ready to work across the aisle on privacy negotiations. Biden urged Congress to pass a Junk Fee Prevention Act that will “make cable, internet and cellphone companies stop charging you up to $200 or more when you decide to switch to another provider. We’ll cap service fees on tickets to concerts and sporting events and make companies disclose all fees upfront.” Biden touted Congress’ success in enacting the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which included $65 billion for connectivity, and the Chips and Science Act. “America used to make nearly 40% of the world’s chips,” but “in the last few decades, we lost our edge and we’re down to producing only 10%,” he said. “We all saw what happened during the pandemic when chip factories overseas shut down.” Car “prices went up,” as “did everything from refrigerators to cellphones,” Biden said: “We can never let that happen again.”

Documents show Facebook knew as early as 2018 that hundreds of thousands of developers across China, Russia, North Korea and Iran had access to user data that could potentially be used in espionage, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., and ranking member Marco Rubio, R-Fla., wrote Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Monday. The documents were released as part of ongoing litigation against Meta on the Cambridge Analytica scandal, they said. According to newly released documents, Facebook told Congress in 2018 that it gave access to application programming interfaces to device-makers in China, including Huawei, OPPO and TCL: “In the wake of those disclosures, Facebook met repeatedly with the staffs of both senators and the Senate Intelligence Committee to discuss access to this data and what controls Facebook was putting in place to protect user data in the future.” Internal documentation shows access extended to some 90,000 developers in China, 42,000 developers in Russia and thousands of developers in Iran and North Korea. “We have grave concerns about the extent to which this access could have enabled foreign intelligence service activity, ranging from foreign malign influence to targeting and counter-intelligence activity,” they wrote. Meta said in a statement Tuesday: "These documents are an artifact from a different product at a different time. Many years ago, we made substantive changes to our platform, shutting down developers’ access to key types of data on Facebook while reviewing and approving all apps that request access to sensitive information."

The LGBTQ Victory Institute led a letter Monday with the Human Rights Campaign and 20 other groups urging Senate leaders to discount recent "homophobic tropes and attacks" against FCC nominee Gigi Sohn and her family, and instead "expeditiously" advance her long-stalled confirmation process. President Joe Biden renominated Sohn in January (see 2301030060) after the Senate didn't confirm her in 2021 or 2022. Sohn's supporters in recent days have pushed back against recent reports about her role as an Electronic Frontier Foundation in influencing some of the group's decisions related to sex worker policy issues that they see as veiled attacks on her sexual orientation (see 2301300025). Those reports criticize her "not on the basis of qualifications or substance, but because she is openly LGBTQ+," LGBTQ Victory Institute and the other groups wrote Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and their GOP counterparts. "Homophobic and sexist fearmongering should have no place in the consideration of Gigi’s qualifications. It’s morally corrupt and antithetical to the high virtue" of the Senate. The Biden administration "made clear earlier this year that they are in full support of Gigi’s historic nomination when they nominated her for a third time," the groups said. Sohn "is the right leader for this role given her extensive qualifications, superior leadership qualities, and deep technical background."