Comcast Senior Vice President David Cohen will testify at the April 9 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the proposed Comcast acquisition of Time Warner Cable, he said. “I will be the Comcast witness at that hearing,” Cohen said during an episode of C-SPAN’s The Communicators, which was to be telecast Saturday. “We've been to this rodeo a few times before. We thoroughly respect the role that Congress has and its oversight role of the Justice Department and the FCC.” Comcast sees it as an opportunity “to make our case” for why the deal should be approved, Cohen added. The hearing will be at 10 a.m. in 226 Dirksen, and witnesses haven’t been announced by the committee.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is to again consider the Patent Transparency and Improvements Act (S-1720) at an executive business meeting Thursday. The committee delayed consideration of the bill at its meeting last week because negotiations had not yet resulted in a deal on a manager’s amendment that would serve as a compromise version of the bill (CD March 28 p12). The meeting is to begin at 10 a.m. in 226 Dirksen.

NAB CEO Gordon Smith and NCTA CEO Michael Powell will both testify on the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act reauthorization Tuesday. They are witnesses at a hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee, starting at 2:30 p.m. in 253 Russell. Also testifying are Bill Lake, chief of the FCC Media Bureau, DirecTV Executive Vice President Michael Palkovic, TiVo CEO Tom Rogers and Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood.

The House Homeland Security Emergency Preparedness Subcommittee cleared the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) Modernization Act, HR-3283, on Thursday during a markup of three bills (http://1.usa.gov/1jaud9x). The bill “seeks to ensure that the system works reliably, effectively and efficiently to ensure the appropriate use of taxpayer funds,” said subcommittee Chairman Susan Brooks, R-Ind., in her opening statement. “It provides the IPAWS program with needed direction.” CTIA “appreciate[s] the Subcommittee’s effort to modernize IPAWS while respecting and protecting the work that wireless carriers have put in to deliver Wireless Emergency Alerts,” said CTIA Vice President-Government Affairs Jot Carpenter. “Since WEA debuted two years ago, the system has been used more than 9000 times to protect the public. We are pleased that the Subcommittee recognizes the value of the WEA program and applied the old maxim ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ in crafting the legislation it approved today.”

Four more House members signed on as co-sponsors of the Local Radio Freedom Act, a resolution opposing new performance royalties (http://1.usa.gov/1mKPXwI), said a National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) release. Democratic Reps. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon and David Price of North Carolina, and Republican Reps. John Mica of Florida and Marlin Stutzman of Indiana, are new co-sponsors. The resolution (H. Con. Res. 16) now has 206 House sponsors, NAB said.

Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mark Pryor, D-Ark., worries about the FCC Wireline Bureau’s plans to hike its rate floor in July. “The rate floor, which is currently set at $14 will rise to over $20 on July 1, 2014,” Pryor said in a Wednesday letter (http://1.usa.gov/P1Fo93) to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. “Telecommunications providers offering service at rates below this rate floor could risk losing vital universal service support if they do not take action to immediately raise the telephone rates of their customers.” Wheeler acknowledged the concern during a separate Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing Thursday, which Pryor did not participate in. The FCC instituted a series of rate floor hikes as part of its November 2011 USF order to prevent what the agency would consider improper USF subsidies. The agency plans to phase in the increase and delay implementation beyond July, Wheeler said. The rate floor is part of the agency’s attempts to phase out excessive subsidies for basic phone service.

The FCC should ensure strong incentives for carriers to participate in the AWS-3 auction, the heads of the House Spectrum Working Group told FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in a letter Tuesday. “We urge the Commission to put forth a band plan that allows for robust competition, maximizing revenue through vigorous auction participation,” said Reps. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., and Doris Matsui, D-Calif. (http://1.usa.gov/NUeTBD). “We recognize the FCC must balance many competing public interest goals in designing spectrum band plans, geographic license areas, and block sizes. We understand that is not an easy task."

The FCC should create a publicly searchable database of consumer complaints accessible from the agency homepage, Sens. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and Tom Udall, D-N.M., told FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in a letter Tuesday. The 400,000 consumer complaints and inquiries the agency receives are made public “on a very limited basis,” they said. Such a database would “enhance transparency, help the FCC empower consumers, and spur greater innovation in the telecommunications marketplace,” they said. The database would also help the agency in “identifying emerging issues,” the lawmakers added. Consumers Union backs the move and will file comments with the FCC on such a database next week, it said of the letter. “An easily accessed, searchable database would help consumers see similar complaints and how they were resolved,” said policy counsel Delara Derakhshani in a statement. “By making consumer complaints public and searchable, it is easier to identify key trends or issues that need to be addressed."

Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., introduced a spectrum bill Tuesday. S-2155 would “amend the National Telecommunications and Information Administration Organization Act to create a Federal Spectrum Reallocation Commission, to provide for the use of a portion of the proceeds from the auction of reallocated Federal spectrum for deficit reduction, and for other purposes,” said the long title listed so far. The bill’s text hadn’t been posted, nor supplied upon request, by our deadline. No co-sponsors are listed, and the legislation has been referred to the Senate Commerce Committee. Kirk is not a member of that committee.

Government phone surveillance questions must be resolved “in a bipartisan manner,” House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Wednesday during a weekly briefing. The programs have saved American lives despite some legitimate privacy concerns, Boehner said. He pointed favorably to legislation introduced this week by leaders of the House Intelligence Committee that would end bulk collection of phone metadata. “The bill represents the start of a bipartisan conversation” in balancing national security and privacy concerns, he said. The efforts will likely end with bulk phone metadata moving away from government hands, Boehner said.