Congress must extend the bonus depreciation provision of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, CenturyLink said Thursday (http://bit.ly/1eBKtyc). The provision expired Dec. 31, and USTelecom, CTIA, NCTA, NTCA-The Rural Broadband Association, Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance, Telecommunications Industry Association and PCIA-The Wireless Infrastructure Association said last month it should be extended. “Bonus depreciation provides tax incentives to companies that continue to invest, or expand their investments, in a slow economy,” CenturyLink said in a post on its policy blog. “Such investments include infrastructure improvements that create new jobs and lead to increased productivity. Extending the bonus depreciation provision will provide companies with the certainty they need to make investments that will improve our global competitiveness and help drive our economy forward.” Opponents said extending the provision would be a costly, poor policy decision.

Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., committed to “curtailing government surveillance overreach” as the new ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee’s Constitution Subcommittee, he said in a statement (http://1.usa.gov/1ixnbtC). Cohen was also named as a member of House Judiciary’s Intellectual Property Subcommittee.

Common Cause praised the net neutrality legislation introduced by Democrats this week (http://bit.ly/1c7BYqr). Democrats introduced the bill to restore net neutrality rules vacated by a January ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. “Everyone concerned about the future of our communications owes these Hill leaders a huge debt of gratitude,” said Michael Copps, special adviser to Common Cause’s Media and Democracy Reform Initiative, and a former FCC commissioner, in a statement. “Now it’s time for the FCC to seize this opportunity to guarantee an Open Internet -- not by half measures and baby steps, but by exercising the authority Congress and the Circuit Court have provided them.” Common Cause backs reclassification of broadband as a Title II telecom service. Lobbyists have told us the bill is unlikely to move in Congress but may act as a signal to the FCC.

The House Communications Subcommittee will dig into broadband stimulus projects in a Tuesday hearing, the panel said in a notice. The hearing will be in 2322 Rayburn at 10:30 a.m. Subcommittee Republicans have been frequently critical of the billions in grants given through the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program. “With the five-year anniversary of the law approaching next week, members will revisit the broadband stimulus that has been plagued by mismanagement and poor decision making in order to understand how we can better protect taxpayer dollars in the future,” the notice said. Witnesses weren’t announced.

NTCA-the Rural Broadband Association praised Congress for passing the farm bill this week. CEO Shirley Bloomfield expressed pleasure the bill would provide for the Department of Agriculture’s Broadband Loan Program. “This program provides support that small, community-based telecommunications providers have put to good use serving the highest-cost and hardest-to-serve pockets of rural America with access to broadband services that help ensure economic success,” Bloomfield said in a statement Wednesday.

CEA plans to talk about its Innovating Safety public education campaign at a Senate distracted driving summit Thursday, it said in a press release Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1bvOD9y). Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., is leading the summit on “Technological Solutions to Distracted Driving,” with plans for three panels in 253 Russell, the first at 10 a.m. and the last at 2:30 p.m. “We will also detail the work our association is doing as part of our Driver Device Interface Working Group, created to develop best practices for designing products that help maximize the driver’s ability to safely use consumer technologies in the car,” said CEA Vice President-Congressional Affairs Veronica O'Connell in a statement.

Avoid applying needless regulation in any Communications Act update, three Republican members of the Senate Commerce Committee wrote in a joint op-ed for The Hill (http://bit.ly/1lB613u). House Republicans announced their intent to overhaul the landmark Telecom Act of 1996 in December, with action planned for 2014 and 2015. “Unfortunately, some would still have people believe that the only way to provide real consumer choice is to have the federal government dictating how consumers are offered services and what those services might be,” said Sens. Dean Heller of Nevada, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire. “This approach is born from the mindset that regulations beget innovation and that bureaucrats in the government, not entrepreneurship, create competition.” They decried “knee-jerk regulatory prescription” and instead suggested empowering consumers through the promotion of competition. They said they welcome a rewrite of the act and emphasized the technology changes that have happened since 1996.

Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., introduced the FCC Process Reform Act (http://1.usa.gov/1aoET2N) Tuesday. The bill originated in the House and cleared the House Commerce Committee by unanimous voice vote in December. Heller’s Senate bill mirrors the committee-cleared House version, a bipartisan compromise. “This bill will help create an FCC that is more transparent and predictable, and provide individuals and businesses in the communications and technology sectors with the certainty they need to invest in infrastructure and grow their businesses,” Heller said in a statement (http://1.usa.gov/1eQDEFm). The bill would require the FCC to take account of the marketplace before rulemakings, assess its performance measures, limit the way the agency can apply conditions imposed on transactions, enhance agency transparency and change sunshine rules to allow a bipartisan majority of FCC commissioners to meet, among other changes. He has introduced similar legislation before, as well as the FCC Consolidated Reporting Act, which passed the House unanimously last fall and has since received zero traction in the Senate. Heller lamented the way the Senate Commerce Committee, of which he is a member, has not taken up such legislation. “The fact that the FCC took up this issue up last week during its Open Meeting combined with the proactivity of the House Committee, it is now incumbent on the Senate Committee to act,” a Heller spokesman told us by email. Heller has applauded the way FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has engaged in process reform, issuing a laudatory statement following the last FCC open meeting (http://1.usa.gov/1frFONa). Heller believes “the Senate voice is being muted on this debate” and that Senate Commerce members “should play a role,” the spokesman said. Heller is pressing Senate Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and the entire committee “both privately and publicly” and is working to build bill support among Republican colleagues, the spokesman said. Rockefeller issued a statement in December after the House bill’s committee clearance saying Congress should seek the FCC’s guidance before embarking on any FCC operation overhauls. Sen. Dan Coats, R-Ind., signed on as a co-sponsor since the bill’s introduction, the spokesman said.

The Senate passed the conferenced version of HR-2642, known commonly as the farm bill, on Tuesday in a 68-32 vote. The conference report includes provisions on a rural gigabit pilot program and broadband deployment. The National League of Cities applauded the passage and urged President Barack Obama to sign the bill into law as soon as possible. Obama released a statement saying the bill “isn’t perfect,” but lauding the “positive difference” it would make. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., touted the broadband provisions he helped fight to include in the bill. The provisions would allow the Rural Utilities Service to better target its broadband loans to unserved and underserved rural areas, requiring at least 15 percent of households in a proposed service region qualify as unserved or underserved, his office said (http://1.usa.gov/1fMLV0n). The provision said the minimum acceptable service level is 4 Mbps upload/1 Mbps download and also tightened the reporting requirements. “I've been working with GAO and the [Inspector General]at [the U.S. Department of Agriculture] on reforms for some time, and I'm glad that we've been able to have this language included in the bipartisan Farm Bill,” Warner said in a statement. “When I was Governor, we launched one of the country’s largest rural broadband projects in Southside, and Virginians recognize that access to broadband helps spur economic growth and create jobs.” Virginia Secretary of Technology Karen Jackson praised the Warner broadband provisions, in a statement.

The basic structure of the Telecom Act of 1996 is “actually quite good” from the perspective of being technology-neutral, state regulators told members of the House Commerce Committee, which is considering overhauling the act. “The problem in many instances is not the Act, but the broad, and some might argue, unwarranted discretion the judiciary has given the FCC to implement it,” NARUC said in joint comments submitted by NARUC President Colette Honorable of Arkansas and Telecom Committee Chairman Chris Nelson, of the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission (http://bit.ly/1dp0bbu). Comments were due to House Commerce Friday, and NARUC released its comments Tuesday. NARUC attacked the way the agency has handled the distinction between telecom and information services, suggesting it has caused problems. NARUC said there are places where the act may need updates but it hasn’t collected its members’ views for any major official positions. Flexibility is already present in the statute, NARUC said: “It is hard to construct a scenario where these existing authorities cannot provide the requisite flexibility.” NARUC said state roles should be preserved in such areas as interconnection: “If VoIP were classified as a ’telecommunications service’ it would be clear that [Communications Act] Sections 251-2 apply to IP interconnections and the arbitration option would be available to smaller carriers that cannot get large carriers to the table to discuss interconnection,” NARUC said. The state regulators flagged the federalism principles that their telecom task force put together as one relevant resource for Congress. The Minority Media and Telecommunications Council, meanwhile, made four recommendations, in comments it released this week. Congress should look at the ways to prioritize and increase opportunities for minority and women’s business enterprise ownership and participation and to promote the goals of broadcast diversity, MMTC said. It emphasized what it called “first-class digital citizenship for people of color” and highlighted broadband access and adoption and called for clarification of laws that may affect broadband infrastructure development. Universal service also plays a role, it said.