The House Communications Subcommittee plans a Feb. 2 hearing on U.S. satellite policy, said Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., and Communications Chairman Bob Latta, R-Ohio, Thursday. “Next-generation satellite technologies are revolutionizing the communications marketplace,” they said: “Yet many of our nation’s laws and regulations haven’t been updated in decades. Given the growth and innovation in this sector, we must ensure the U.S. is keeping pace with this rapidly evolving industry.” Rodgers and House Commerce ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., filed the Satellite and Telecommunications Streamlining Act and Secure Space Act in December in a bid to revamp the FCC’s satellite licensing rules. STSA would revamp the FCC's low-earth orbit satellite licensing rules by requiring the commission to issue “specific performance requirements” for satellite licensees to meet on space safety and orbital debris. SSA would bar the FCC from granting satellite licenses to any entity the FCC deems a national security risk under the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act (see 2212090064). The hearing will begin at 10:30 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn.

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., will chair the House Antitrust Subcommittee in the 118th Congress, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, announced Friday. Massie replaces Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., as top Republican on the subcommittee. Buck, who remains a member of the Judiciary Committee, helped lead several pieces of bipartisan antitrust legislation in the 117th Congress. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., will chair the House Intellectual Property Subcommittee, and Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., the House Federal Government Surveillance Subcommittee, Jordan announced.

Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Communications Subcommittee ranking member John Thune, R-S.D., sharply criticized the FCC’s handling of the affordable connectivity program, after the GAO reported its goals and measures "lack specificity and clearly defined targets, raising questions about how effective” the commission’s oversight of the program is. “The results of GAO’s findings reveal that the FCC’s ACP is subject to massive waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars,” Cruz and Thune said Wednesday: “We find it incredibly concerning that the FCC has failed to establish a process that regularly assesses fraud risks within the ACP. It is incumbent upon” Senate Commerce “to have an oversight hearing to address GAO’s report and hold the FCC accountable to American taxpayers.” Thune launched a review of all federal broadband funding programs in December in a bid to hold executive branch agencies accountable for their disbursal of money from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and other measures (see 2212060067)."We appreciate GAO’s recommendations and are committed to further improving our performance goals and monitoring for risks within the program," an FCC spokesperson emailed Wednesday in response to GAO's recommendations. “The success of" ACP, "which currently helps over 15.7 million eligible households afford high-quality broadband service, continues to be a top priority for the Commission," the spokesperson said.

Republican legislation introduced Wednesday would prohibit TikTok from being downloaded on U.S. devices and ban commercial activity with parent company ByteDance. Introduced by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., the No TikTok on United States Devices Act would direct the president to use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act “within 30 days to block and prohibit transactions” with ByteDance.

Release of membership rosters for the Senate Commerce Committee and other chamber panels is on hold until the chamber reaches a deal on an organizing resolution that would set up committee ratios, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told reporters Tuesday. Senate Commerce had expected to receive its member assignments Monday (see 2301200058), aides told us. The Senate GOP caucus is delaying its backing for the organizing resolution while it sorts through a dispute about whether to issue a waiver allowing both senators from the same state to serve on the same committee, Durbin said. Incoming Commerce ranking member Ted Cruz of Texas, meanwhile, said he hired top GOP staff. Cruz named three top Senate Commerce GOP staff. Former Senate Banking Committee GOP Staff Director Brad Grantz and panel GOP Chief Counsel Dan Sullivan will fill the same roles on Commerce, Cruz said. He also picked former House Freedom Caucus Communications Director Melissa Braid to be Senate Commerce GOP communications director.

Two California Bay Area editorial boards jointly urged the Senate Thursday to “break the stalemate” on FCC nominee Gigi Sohn. President Joe Biden renominated Sohn earlier this month, following stalled confirmation processes in 2021 and 2022 (see 2301030060). Sohn’s confirmation “would end the 2-2 deadlock on the FCC that is keeping Biden from fulfilling his campaign promise to restore net neutrality, ensuring that all internet traffic is treated equally,” the Mercury News and East Bay Times editorial said. Republicans and communications sector companies opposed to Sohn “don’t want that to happen. They favor the status quo that allows the internet companies to pick winners and losers by charging content providers higher rates for speedier access to customers.” The Electronic Frontier Foundation cited the editorial in a renewed call for Sohn’s confirmation.

National Hispanic Media Coalition CEO Brenda Castillo expressed dissatisfaction Wednesday over President Joe Biden’s decision to renominate Gigi Sohn as the third FCC Democratic commissioner instead of heeding the Jan. 2 call of that group and others to select “a person of Latino descent” for the vacant seat (see 2301050062). The last person to represent the community on the commission, Gloria Tristani, left in September 2001. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus (see 2102110043) and others began pressing Biden in early 2021 to nominate a Latino FCC commissioner. Sohn’s renomination is drawing Senate Commerce Committee GOP calls for the panel to conduct a full new vetting process (see 2301030060). Just 13 of the 99 nominees Biden picked since the beginning of January are part of the Latino community, which “is not an accurate representation of the Latino community, and diminishes the leadership opportunities available to our community for key positions in” the U.S. government, Castillo said. NHMC is particularly “disappointed” by Biden nominating “a non-Latino candidate for the sole open” FCC seat given the Hispanic groups’ Jan. 2 letter, “to which we received no response.” The group stopped short of asking Biden to formally withdraw Sohn’s renomination. The “representation of Latinos at agencies, like the FCC,” is “a necessary component of meaningful progress," Castillo said: “But, progress for some does not equate to progress for all -- especially when some of us are denied a seat at the table.”

Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., will be House Homeland Security Committee chair for the 118th Congress, he announced Monday. The committee has jurisdiction over the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and oversees key cyber issues. Securing the “cyber border” will be one of two top priorities, said Green.

The House voted 365-65 Tuesday on House Resolution 11 to create a select committee on “strategic competition” between the U.S. and China, which will investigate the Chinese Communist Party’s “economic, technological, and security progress.” H. Res. 11 tasks the committee with providing policy recommendations to Congress. The panel, to be chaired by Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., will include seven Republicans and five Democrats. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said during floor debate “this will be a bipartisan committee,” though he faulted the Biden administration for executing policies that he believes has weakened the U.S. versus China. It’s “my hope, my desire, my wish that we speak with one voice” on China and focus “on the challenges that we have,” including to secure “our intellectual property.” House Rules Committee ranking member Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said the Democratic caucus is concerned “about this turning into a committee that focuses on pushing Republican conspiracy theories and partisan talking points” and instead wants the panel to produce “bipartisan work with a fact-based tone and approach that could be received by the international community, seriously and substantively.” McGovern cautioned against focusing “myopically” on security challenges posed by China, which could “distract us from the need to build a holistic approach in many areas” given the U.S. faces “technological … challenges from many regions across the globe.”

Free State Foundation President Randolph May criticized “the scattershot nature that defines the current multi-agency, multi-program approach to disbursing broadband subsidies” in his response Friday to a call from Senate Communications Subcommittee ranking member John Thune, R-S.D., for stakeholder input for his review of all federal broadband funding programs. Comments were due Friday. Thune launched the review in December in a bid to hold executive branch agencies accountable for their disbursal of money from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and other measures (see 2212060067).