The FCC should defer to Congress in developing its net neutrality rules, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said at the NAB State Leadership Conference Tuesday. “I've introduced legislation in the past to ensure there is open access on the Internet,” Goodlatte added. But the agency should always “be looking back at the laws,” because it’s full of “unelected bureaucrats,” and shouldn’t be forging the path, he said. “That, to me, is the better way to legislate,” Goodlatte said, saying if the FCC were to advance net neutrality without looking to legislation approved by Congress, it would be a “very bad harbinger for the future of freedom and democracy in the United States.” Goodlatte said he’s not familiar with the “details of the agenda” that FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler outlined earlier this month.

Several key committees of Congress are gearing up for satellite reauthorization. The House Communications Subcommittee scheduled a hearing next week on the reauthorization of the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act (STELA), it said in a tweet (http://bit.ly/MYMsTp). STELA expires at the end of 2014 and is under the jurisdiction of both Commerce and Judiciary committees. House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., has pledged a STELA draft by the end of Q1 and indicated a desire not to address retransmission consent in the reauthorization process. Witnesses and other details haven’t been announced. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., told the NAB State Leadership Conference Tuesday that retrans is an issue “almost every member of Congress has heard about” and that House Judiciary will consider during more hearings on STELA: “These hearings will help inform the committee members on the issues as we move forward.” Following the speech, Goodlatte told reporters “we have made no decision” on whether to address retrans issues in STELA but promised hearings “soon,” with decisions later. During his speech, Goodlatte said “clearly, broadcasting has changed in ways that make our existing laws seem outdated” and indicated current consumer expectations can “clash” with copyright law written before the advent of the Internet. Goodlatte pointed to the Aereo case as one issue that “could reshape” how the broadcast industry reaches consumers. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., spoke to the Leadership Conference earlier, emphasizing STELA reauthorization. “I just talked about how we needed to get it done by the end of the year,” Klobuchar, a member of both Commerce and Judiciary, told us after the speech.

The Telecom Act of 1996 “ushered in several major advancements in communications,” FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn told the NAB State Leadership Conference Tuesday when mentioning a possible overhaul of the act. Congress should tweak the act if needed “without destroying the fabric of the law,” she said, emphasizing the importance of the nine pillars enshrined in the law. Clyburn also touched on the broadcast incentive auction and suggested perhaps the FCC should offer bidding credits so that spectrum acquired in auction could be used to supply fixed wireless to schools or anchor institutions. The FCC should “be more creative” in lowering barriers for small businesses, she said. “When the market does not operate fairly or efficiently, those in government should not hesitate to step in judiciously,” Clyburn said, saying she favors not only an even playing field but also one in which all potential participants are able to play. NAB President Gordon Smith praised Clyburn as both a commissioner and acting chairwoman, saying she spoke truly in promising an open door to broadcasters and “is open to the other side.” Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., spoke to the conference earlier Tuesday. “The major substantive focus was on getting the incentive auction right, the importance of the auction for public safety,” Klobuchar told us after her speech. She also mentioned the need to get the repacking process handled properly and cited important spectrum coordination considerations along the borders with Canada and Mexico. “We need to get the incentive auction right.”

House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., wants a bill to end any possibility of the FCC resuming its Critical Information Needs study, he said in a press release Tuesday (http://1.usa.gov/MrukAA). House Republicans had for weeks questioned the design of the study, which originally included questioning of media organizations, saying they feared it would be a revival of the Fairness Doctrine. The FCC suspended the study last week and said it would no longer question any journalists. “It took nearly 25 years to get the Fairness Doctrine off the books once it had been ‘eliminated’ in 1987, and we will do whatever it takes to ensure this study or any other effort by the government to control the output of America’s newsrooms never sees the light of day,” Walden said. The subcommittee plans a hearing on the issue in addition to developing legislation, he said.

The Senate Judiciary Committee announced a March 26 hearing to scrutinize the recently announced Comcast/Time Warner Cable acquisition. “The merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable touches on important policy questions about how Americans access these valuable services,” Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said in a statement Monday. “It also presents a critical moment to discuss net neutrality principles that have allowed the Internet to remain an open marketplace for ideas.” Previously, the Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee had said it would hold a hearing, but Leahy said the full committee should hold the hearing “because these are issues of national importance.” Subcommittee Chairwoman Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., expects the hearing to examine “the details of the proposed merger and how it will impact competition in the cable and broadband markets,” she said. “Consumers deserve fair prices and high quality service for their TV and internet access.” The hearing will be at 10 a.m. in 226 Dirksen. Witnesses weren’t announced.

House Commerce Committee Vice Chairwoman Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., is wrong to compare net neutrality to the Fairness Doctrine, Computer & Communications Industry Association Vice President-Government Relations Cathy Sloan told us over the weekend. On Friday, Blackburn introduced HR-4070, the Internet Freedom Act, which would prevent the FCC from reinstating any net neutrality rules (CD Feb 24 p20) -- an idea which is widely expected to face an uphill battle in Congress. At the time, Blackburn called net neutrality “the Fairness Doctrine of the Internet.” House Republicans have been up in arms over the idea of the Fairness Doctrine recently amid fears over the FCC’s now-suspended Critical Information Needs study design and the possibility, as Republicans said, that the FCC might revive the doctrine. But that doctrine “involved the FCC in determinations about whether broadcasters were presenting balanced points of view in their programming over the public airwaves,” Sloan countered, and what Sloan would call open Internet regulation, “by sharp contrast, seeks to ensure that neither Internet access network operators OR the government have ANY editorial or gatekeeper role with respect to the nature of content available to end users on the Internet,” she said in an email. The Internet Freedom Act had five Republican co-sponsors upon introduction -- Reps. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, Jeff Duncan of South Carolina, Steve Scalise of Louisiana, John Shimkus of Illinois and House Communications Subcommittee Vice Chairman Bob Latta of Ohio. It has been referred to House Commerce.

The Songwriter Equity Act, which will “level the playing field for songwriters, composers, and publishers to receive fair compensation,” will be introduced by House Judiciary Committee sponsor Doug Collins, R-Ga., and co-sponsor Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., Tuesday, said a Collins news release. Jeffries and Collins plan a press conference Tuesday at 10 a.m. at Capitol Hill’s House Triangle to introduce the legislation, it said. They will be joined by Paul Williams, American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers president; David Israelite, National Music Publishers’ Association president; Mike O'Neill, Broadcast Music Inc. CEO; and Daryl Friedman, the Recording Academy’s chief advocacy and industry relations officer, said the release.

The FCC is taking the right course on net neutrality, House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., said over the weekend on Press: Here, an NBC news show broadcast in San Francisco and her home district in Silicon Valley. She emphasized the importance of FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s not appealing the D.C. Circuit appeals court decision that vacated FCC net neutrality rules as well as Wheeler’s decision to focus on barriers to municipal broadband networks. But “I don’t think an ISP and I don’t think a wireless service should be able to discriminate or block content,” Eshoo said. “Now we haven’t gotten to wireless yet.” The FCC’s vacated net neutrality rules, first issued as part of a 2010 order, did not apply to wireless service.

Two House Democrats want their colleagues to vote against a cellphone unlocking bill (http://1.usa.gov/1dbtwH2) slated for a House floor vote Tuesday (CD Feb 24 p19). Reps. Zoe Lofgren and Anna Eshoo, both of California, circulated a Dear Colleague letter Monday criticizing HR-1123 introduced by Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va. “After this bill was marked up and reported out of committee, a new section was added to the bill without notice to or consultation with us,” they said, saying Public Knowledge and the Electronic Frontier Foundation had both withdrawn support. “The new provision could have negative effects on consumer choice and could undercut an important court decision that protects consumer choice and prevents monopolistic practices. We cannot in good conscience support a bill that risks giving up so much for so little gain.” Lofgren is listed as a co-sponsor for the bill. In response to a press question about Public Knowledge’s concerns, a Republican Hill aide told us Friday that the bill was never meant to address bulk unlocking, as Public Knowledge wanted. That would be addressed in a broader copyright review, the aide had said. “The new addition to the bill puts the effort to stand up for the property rights of the owners of technology devices at risk,” Eshoo and Lofgren said in their letter. “It is sad that the bipartisan consensus reached during mark-up in the Judiciary committee to improve the law has been destroyed by a secret decision of the majority after the bill was reported out.”

House Commerce Committee Vice Chairwoman Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., introduced a bill Friday to stop the FCC from reinstating net neutrality rules, as expected (CD Feb 21 p6). The legislation is HR-4070, the Internet Freedom Act, named after a bill Blackburn previously had introduced on IP-enabled services (http://1.usa.gov/1dbrV4f). “Net Neutrality is the Fairness Doctrine of the Internet,” Blackburn said in a statement. “Once the FCC has a foothold into managing how internet service providers run their networks they will essentially be deciding which content goes first, second, third, or not at all. It’s time for Congress to slam the FCC’s regulatory back-door shut, lock it, and return the keys to the free market. My legislation will put the brakes on net neutrality and protect our innovators from these job-killing regulations.” The two-page bill would render powerless the FCC’s 2010 Open Internet Order and prevent the agency from issuing “such regulations in substantially the same form, or [issuing] new regulations that are substantially the same as such regulations, unless the reissued or new regulations are specifically authorized by a law enacted after the date of the enactment of this Act,” with exceptions for national security, public safety and law enforcement. Lobbyists and observers told us Thursday that such net neutrality legislation is generally unlikely to advance out of Congress. But a Democratic aide said the tensions surrounding such a polarizing issue may put a hitch in any Communications Act overhaul discussions. The offices of Communications Subcommittee Vice Chairman Bob Latta, R-Ohio, and Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., told us Thursday they had an interest in co-sponsorship. Blackburn’s spokesman said the bill has five co-sponsors but declined to name them.