The bill text of the Department of Commerce and the Workforce Consolidation Act was posted online this week. This Senate legislation proposes to merge the Commerce Department and Labor Department; unsuccessful variations have been introduced in the past. Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., introduced S-1836 Dec. 17, and it was referred to the Homeland Security Committee. “The goal of this legislation is twofold: to achieve cost savings by combining duplicative functions, and to improve the quality of our country’s economic policies by ensuring a coordinated approach,” Burr said in a document providing background information on the bill. It would save billions of dollars, he said, citing the potential consolidation of 35 offices into 12 and the killing or reducing of funds for seven programs or initiatives. The new cabinet agency the bill proposes to create would be called the Department of Commerce and the Workforce. In an envisioned organizational chart of the department, NTIA and the National Institute of Standards and Technology would report directly to the department’s secretary and deputy secretary. It would put the Small Business Administration within the Commerce Department and move the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to the Department of the Interior, a news release said (http://1.usa.gov/1c522RI). The bill has two co-sponsors, Dan Coats, R-Ind., and James Inhofe, R-Okla.

NCTA President Michael Powell, AT&T Senior Executive Vice President James Cicconi and Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen met with a senior aide to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler on Thursday to discuss the pending judicial review of the net neutrality order, an ex parte filing said (http://bit.ly/1gUR1dT). They said that “regardless of how the case comes out, the principles articulated by the Commission enjoy widespread support and broadband customers will continue to enjoy unfettered access to Internet content and applications."

Japan’s SoftBank plans to make an offer of more than $19 billion for T-Mobile US, to merge it with Sprint, which the company already owns, Japanese news service Nikkei reported Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1cm8kAO). The deal is likely as early as the spring, the report said.

Open interconnection and a “healthy transit market” for Internet traffic are important, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings told FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and aides in what agency records show was a rare commission lobbying meeting for the company. Those two factors are “prerequisites to scaling the Internet as a global content distribution platform,” an ex parte filing, released Monday in docket 09-191 (http://bit.ly/1boC0ce), recounted Hastings as saying during the Dec. 18 meeting. Hastings cited the online video distributor’s Open Connect program and explained it to Wheeler and aides including Senior Counselor Phil Verveer, wireline aide Daniel Alvarez and media aide Maria Kirby. Open Connect is a content delivery network that locates Netflix’s content closer to ISPs, said a blog post that the ex parte filing referenced (http://nflx.it/1c3FPHa). Netflix last lobbied the FCC in an ex parte meeting 13 months ago, according to agency records (http://bit.ly/19e0bNM). A company spokesman declined to comment further.

Opposing disclosure of “highly confidential information” to agents of Comcast/NBCUniversal about online video distributor (OVD) peer programming contracts, Disney executives on its and ESPN’s behalf also lobbied an aide to FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel on ensuring there’s sufficient wireless mic spectrum. Exchanging such highly confidential information as OVD contracts when an OVD invokes a benchmark condition in the FCC order letting Comcast buy control of NBCUniversal is “discouraged and prevented by competition and antitrust law,” said a Disney ex parte filing posted Monday to docket 10-56 (http://bit.ly/K07tLD). It noted an agency proceeding on a stay related to the deal condition, a delay which Disney and other content providers have backed (CD Dec 23 p16). The commission should ensure there’s sufficient spectrum for wireless mics after the incentive auction repacking, Disney said four executives also told Rosenworcel’s aide Dec. 18.

Members of the Public Interest Spectrum Coalition made their case for unlicensed use of the TV bands following the incentive auction and channel repacking, in a meeting with Roger Sherman, FCC Wireless Bureau acting chief, and others from the bureau. PISC said the FCC should designate “an unlicensed and contiguous duplex gap (and/or guard band) of at least 20 MHz” and maintain two designated channels for wireless mics, opening “them for shared unlicensed use; shrinking the separation distances that limit wireless microphone use of locally-vacant, out-of-market TV co-channels; and requiring microphones to rely first on out-of-market TV co-channels that are not available to unlicensed devices,” said a filing on the meeting (http://bit.ly/1eCAKdd). It said the FCC should also make Channel 37 available on a limited basis for unlicensed use and maintain “the status quo with respect to unlicensed access to 600 MHz spectrum, post-auction, in each local area until it is actually in use.” Michael Calabrese of the New America Foundation, Harold Feld of Public Knowledge and Matt Wood of Free Press were at the meeting for PISC.

The FCC Public Safety Bureau dealt with various requests for more time beyond a Nov. 20 deadline for licensees along the Mexican border seeking 800 MHz rebanding reimbursement from Sprint to file cost estimates with the company. The order released Tuesday was part of the ongoing 800 MHz rebanding process. FCC rules say “extensions of time shall not be routinely granted,” the bureau said (http://fcc.us/JoldPC): “The import of that rule is especially relevant to 800 MHz rebanding where delay in rebanding by one licensee can cause a ‘domino effect’ delay in the rebanding efforts of other licensees that have met the Commission’s 800 MHz band reconfiguration deadlines, with a consequent delay of the overall program.” The bureau approved some extensions for licensees that “have shown that grant of the request will not unreasonably delay rebanding” while holding other requests in abeyance. Among those getting an extension were Tucson Electric Power Co. and the Glendale Police Department in Arizona and San Diego Gas and Electric Co. Some large licensees need to justify an extension, including Maricopa County, Ariz., Southern California Edison Co. and San Diego County, Calif., the bureau said. All licensees that won approval have promised to complete rebanding cost estimates by March 10.

Members of the GPS community again said the FCC shouldn’t permit the operations proposed in LightSquared’s request to use its spectrum for a terrestrial network until technical interference concerns have been resolved. The concerns should be resolved in “transparent, public notice and comment rulemaking proceedings,” like the process involving Dish Network’s AWS-4 spectrum, the GPS Innovation Alliance said in an ex parte filing in docket 11-109 (http://bit.ly/1cPXT5e). The filing recounted a meeting last week with members of the Wireless Bureau and the Office of Strategic Planning & Policy Analysis, it said.

Time Warner Cable and Viacom reached a multiyear renewal of their retransmission consent agreement. The agreement allows TWC and Bright House Networks “to continue delivery of the entire portfolio of Viacom networks to their subscribers and provides an enriched multiplatform experience to a vast library of popular on-demand content,” Time Warner Cable and Viacom said in a news release Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1jFxb8i). The agreement enables continued carriage of Viacom’s channels and content across linear TV in both SD and HD, video on-demand, authenticated websites and apps, it said. As part of an expansion of the arrangement, TWC will make the entertainment network Epix available to its subscribers under the terms of the agreement, it said. Time Warner Cable sometimes negotiates carriage deals on behalf of Bright House.

Special access purchasers rely heavily on five- and seven-year special access plans, and AT&T’s attempt to eliminate them will lead to increased rates, Sprint and XO told officials from the FCC Wireline Bureau and Office of General Counsel Thursday, an ex parte filing said (http://bit.ly/1eCFvUf). The companies repeated the points they made in their petitions to suspend and investigate AT&Ts tariff filing, they said. The FCC Wireline Bureau suspended AT&T’s latest tariff revision Dec. 9 and has five months to investigate and determine whether it’s reasonable (CD Dec 10 p1).