The House Appropriations Committee Subcommittee for Homeland Security advanced Department of Homeland Security FY 2015 appropriations legislation by unanimous voice vote Wednesday. Committee Democratic leadership supported the legislation during the markup. Lawmakers didn’t offer or debate amendments. The full Appropriations Committee will now consider the bill, which would have $39.2 billion in DHS discretionary appropriations. That’s $50 million below the level for FY 2014, and $887.8 million more than President Barack Obama sought, said a committee news release Tuesday (http://1.usa.gov/SVo73B).

The Senate Communications Subcommittee plans a June 5 hearing on the IP transition and public safety, it said in a notice Thursday. The hearing is to start at 10:30 a.m. in 253 Russell. Witnesses weren’t announced.

House Commerce Committee member Ralph Hall, R-Texas, lost his primary race in a runoff vote Tuesday to former U.S. attorney and Heath, Texas, mayor John Ratcliffe. The vote was 52.8 percent to 47.2 percent. Hall’s tenure in the House, initially as a Democrat, began in 1981. Hall was a rumored candidate to be chairman of the Commerce Committee four years ago (CD May 27/10 p2). He subsequently became chairman of the Science Committee.

A top House Republican intended to introduce a bill Wednesday night to stop reclassification of broadband as a Title II telecom service, his office told us. Communications Subcommittee Chairman Bob Latta, R-Ohio, said he would introduce such a bill, at a recent FCC oversight hearing (CD May 21 p3). Latta is an opponent of net neutrality rules and lambasted the request from some net neutrality proponents that the agency reclassify broadband as a way to develop stronger rules.

"Any hindering of NTIA’s ability to conduct the proper levels of due diligence” for its transition of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) “through the use of currently available resources could result in harm to U.S. businesses and Internet users as a whole,” wrote Bruce Josten, U.S. Chamber of Commerce executive vice president-government affairs, to the House Tuesday. The letter was about the Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for FY 2015 (HR-4660), slated for debate on the House floor Wednesday and a vote Thursday (http://1.usa.gov/1wgP2WX). HR-4660 would provide $36.7 million for NTIA, below the $51 million the executive branch requested. The funding would not include money for NTIA’s plan to transition the IANA, which Republicans have slammed, the appropriations committee has said. Josten said “NTIA has steadfastly opposed a transition of any mechanism that would deviate from the current multistakeholder model of Internet governance and should be allowed to take any needed steps to achieve the cautiousness and transparency that we agree is essential for a safe and smooth transition."

The Senate Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law plans a June 4 hearing on the Location Privacy Protection Act (S-2171), which would require opt-in consent for mobile apps wishing to collect location information (http://1.usa.gov/1mGwj1X). Subcommittee Chairman Al Franken, D-Minn., reintroduced the bill in March (http://1.usa.gov/1mGA1sv). The hearing will be in 226 Dirksen at 2:30 p.m.

The Senate Appropriations Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Subcommittee will mark up its FY2015 funding bill for those agencies June 3 at 11 a.m. in 192 Dirksen, the Appropriations Committee said. The House is expected to take up its companion funding bill (HR-4660) this week, slated for debate and a vote Wednesday and Thursday, according to the schedule of Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va. (http://1.usa.gov/1wgP2WX).

U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman should start a case at the World Trade Organization against China for state-sponsored trade secret theft on U.S. industry, said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., in a May 22 letter to Froman. A grand jury in the Western District of Pennsylvania recently indicted five Chinese military officials accused of economic espionage on U.S. interests. “It is critical to the cyber security of American businesses that we have in place and take advantage of strong enforcement mechanisms to punish countries who sanction cyber-attacks,” wrote Schumer (http://1.usa.gov/1kl3vMQ). “The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) requires each WTO member to protect trade secrets and Chinese policies that sanction cyber espionage are in clear violation of that agreement.” China has criticized the U.S. for the indictment, according to media reports.

Rural broadband connectivity is crucial for healthcare, education, commerce and for social reasons, Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, said during an episode of The Broadband Beat With Shirley Bloomfield, hosted by NTCA (http://bit.ly/1oGmZMl). “If you don’t have high-speed broadband connectivity in your community, you're going to be left out,” he said in the video. He called telemedicine “a powerful tool” and said distance learning is another asset. “You need a lot of capacity,” he said. Begich, a member of the Commerce Committee, said he gave the FCC “a hard time” on how it maps broadband and the challenges facing Alaska. “It’s great to have the big companies but you also have to have these smaller companies that were there before anyone else was there. They offer unique, if you think of a credit union, it’s local, homegrown, member-driven, and they are part of the equation at the end of the day.” Don’t “saddle” innovative smaller companies with huge debt due to the way technology and rules are changing, Begich said. He emphasized he not only talks to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, but also to the Republican commissioners and other Democrats. “The chairman and I have had very positive conversations,” the senator said. “He’s been to Alaska.” Such a visit is his test for commissioners, Begich added.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is “reviewing” the House-passed version of the USA Freedom Act, HR-3361, “very carefully,” she said in a statement Thursday, citing the “considerable margin” by which it passed the House earlier that day (CD May 23 p9). “I have spoken with the president who is urging the Senate to pass the bill as well, and I am open to considering the legislation when the Senate returns to Washington.” Feinstein has strongly defended NSA surveillance authorities over the past year and discouraged lawmakers from curbing bulk collection of metadata. Several of the USA Freedom Act’s original co-sponsors in the House abandoned it, voting no, and multiple Senate Democrats who backed the original USA Freedom Act, introduced last fall, already have cautioned that the modified House version may be too weak to prevent government surveillance. The New York Times released an editorial (http://nyti.ms/1jL9HOI) Thursday evening slamming the bill due to such concerns: “Unfortunately, the bill passed by the House on Thursday falls far short of those promises, and does not live up to its title, the U.S.A. Freedom Act. Because of last-minute pressure from a recalcitrant Obama administration, the bill contains loopholes that dilute the strong restrictions in an earlier version, potentially allowing the spy agencies to continue much of their phone-data collection.”