The Senate Judiciary Committee postponed consideration of the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act reauthorization bill (S-2454), as expected (CD June 19 p15). Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and ranking member Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, introduced a two-page clean reauthorization bill earlier this month. It was on the Judiciary agenda for its executive business meeting Thursday. Consideration of STELA “is going to be held over,” Leahy said at the meeting’s outset. In that committee, any member can delay consideration of new business by a week. “At our next meeting, that bill will be up for a vote,” Leahy said. “I can safely say both on behalf of Senator Grassley and myself, that’s something we hope to move quickly through the Senate.” Later that day, Judiciary announced an executive business meeting for Thursday at 9:30 a.m. in 226 Dirksen. No agenda was released, but a Judiciary aide confirmed to us that STELA is expected to be on it. In his written statement for the session (http://1.usa.gov/1lEMgWM), Leahy had pointed to the importance of swiftly moving what he called “a bipartisan, non-controversial STELA reauthorization” through the Senate. Lobbyists and observers still await STELA bills from the Senate Commerce Committee and House Judiciary Committee. The House Commerce Committee advanced a bill earlier this year.

The GAO recommended that the Agriculture Department include stimulus-funded Broadband Initiatives Program results achieved as compared with updated subscribership goals in its yearly performance plan and report, outlined in a 32-page GAO report released Tuesday (http://1.usa.gov/UMT5ME). GAO noted that as of March 31, 42 of 297 of these projects were killed, with Rural Utilities Service officials saying “these projects were turned down by the awardee or terminated by RUS for a variety of reasons, such as awardee financial difficulties or inability to meet requirements,” according to GAO. “Consequently, in a BIP status report as of March 31, 2014, RUS updated its subscribership estimate goal to show that 728,733 subscribers were expected to receive new or improved broadband access as a result of BIP funding.” The Agriculture Department agrees with the GAO recommendation “and will institute procedures to fully address it,” GAO said. The report also noted other struggles, such as how “reduced staffing and travel funding levels during BIP’s implementation will challenge RUS to complete inspections given the scope of the program, including 216 ongoing infrastructure projects to be completed by the June 2015 deadline.”

Industry groups, technology companies, civil liberties advocates and libertarian-leaning groups on Wednesday lauded the Email Privacy Act for reaching 218 co-sponsors, which gives it majority House support. HR-1852 would amend the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) to require a warrant to access all remotely stored electronic content. It’s a “significant milestone,” said Google Senior Privacy Policy Counsel David Lieber in a blog post (http://bit.ly/1oGb0le). Software and Information Industry Association Senior Director-Public Policy David LeDuc noted in a blog post that a “majority of the majority” supports the bill, with 136 Republicans backing it (http://bit.ly/1qdskvh). “This stands out as a bipartisan priority to level the playing field for protection of electronic communications,” LeDuc said. The bill’s original sponsors -- Reps. Jared Polis, D-Colo., and Kevin Yoder, R-Kan. -- have said they would like to skip any committee markup and pass the clean bill under suspension, which requires a two-thirds majority. “This legislation is critical to Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights,” said Katie McAuliffe, executive director of Digital Liberty for Americans for Tax Reform, a tax reduction advocate group that is a member of Digital 4th, a coalition of civil liberties and conservative groups. Getting majority sponsorship means “Americans’ electronic communications can be protected from unwarranted government intrusion,” said Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, which also belongs to the Digital 4th. Amending ECPA is a “top priority” for the Direct Marketing Association, said DMA Vice President-Government Affairs Rachel Thomas in a Wednesday blog post (http://bit.ly/1yj5jf5). “The consequence of this outdated provision in an important law has been to strip Internet users of basic rights.” Linda Moore, CEO of senior tech executive network TechNet, said in a statement that “ECPA is an obsolete piece of legislation that must be brought into the 21st century.” Google’s Lieber said ECPA makes outdated distinctions based on age of email. “An email may receive more robust privacy protections under ECPA depending on how old it is, whether it has been opened, and where it is stored -- while users attach no importance to these distinctions,” he said. “The Department of Justice itself has acknowledged that there is no principled reason for this rule.”

Democratic and Republican House members asked the GAO to conduct a study of communications services on tribal lands. “We're deeply concerned by the lack of access to communications services in Tribal communities and the barriers this presents to education, public safety, and economic development,” said a Wednesday letter (http://1.usa.gov/1jzjym2) signed by Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., along with Reps. Tom Cole, R-Okla., and Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., and Don Young, R-Alaska. They asked about efforts at various levels to collect data on communications availability, “including fixed and mobile broadband, wireline and wireless phone service, and radio and television broadcast service,” as well as programs that help in promoting the deployment of such infrastructure and service adoption. They also request a list of “challenges that exist to increasing telecommunications subscribership rates for residents on Tribal lands and recommendations for addressing those barriers.”

House Judiciary Committee lawmakers issued statements Wednesday clarifying what they want to focus on during Friday’s expected Antitrust Subcommittee hearing on net neutrality. The hearing “will examine whether antitrust law or regulation would be more effective at protecting consumers, innovation, and fair competition on the Internet,” said Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va. “Antitrust law seeks to achieve these goals by promoting and preserving a competitive process and prosecuting anticompetitive and discriminatory conduct -- while regulation could in fact prevent, rather than promote, innovation on the Internet and negatively affect the economy and consumers.” Subcommittee Chairman Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., said the “question at hand is whether antitrust law or regulation is a more effective approach to prevent misconduct and protect consumers and innovation.” The hearing will take place at 9 a.m. in 2141 Rayburn.

The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) asked the Senate Judiciary Committee leadership to modify its bill reauthorizing the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act, currently a two-page clean bill (S-2454) that doesn’t revamp the video market. But leaders should “add provisions that eliminate outdated regulatory schemes, such as retransmission consent agreements and must-carry provisions of the Cable Act of 1992,” CCAGW President Thomas Schatz told Senate Judiciary lawmakers in a Tuesday letter (http://bit.ly/1qepcPG). The group calls itself a nonpartisan nonprofit with more than a million members and supporters. “Short of disposing of retransmission consent agreements and must-carry provisions altogether, I encourage you to eliminate the ban on [pay-TV companies] from disconnecting service during sweeps week, and eliminating a broadcaster’s right to placement on the basic tier in order to provide for a level playing field in negotiations,” Schatz said. Broadcasters have requested a clean STELA reauthorization that does not tweak the video market in such ways and applauded the Judiciary bill the way it is. A low-power TV group also sent Judiciary leadership a letter Tuesday requesting changes to the bill. It should address “the inconsistency of the local service area boundaries for cable retransmission of LPTV with the boundaries STELA established for satellite retransmission, the inconsistency of the satellite MVPD [multichannel video programming distributor] regional installation rules which discriminate against LPTV in how these vital local stations are displayed in the satellite MVPD channel databases,” said the LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition, as well as “the lack of vital industry statistics provided by the satellite [sic] MVPDs related to the number of their subscribers which use their local- in- local service.” Judiciary lists this STELA bill on the agenda for its Thursday executive session at 9:30 a.m. in 226 Dirksen, but according to committee rules, any member may ask for its consideration to be delayed a week, given it’s new committee business (CD June 18 p4). “STELA is on the agenda for the first time, so common practice is for the bill to be held over a week,” a spokeswoman for committee ranking member Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told us Wednesday.

The FCC and FTC are agencies that “can operate with a little less,” declared House Appropriations Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee Chairman Ander Crenshaw, R-Fla., Wednesday during a subcommittee markup of those agencies’ FY 2015 budgets (http://1.usa.gov/1lDkSIN). The subcommittee advanced the bill by voice vote, despite Democrats voicing concerns about cuts. His subcommittee budget slates the FCC for $53 million less than what the agency requested -- $323 million, $17 million less than FY 2014’s enacted level. It slates $293 million for the FTC, $5 million less than what was enacted in FY 2014 and fitting with the White House budget request. The section on the FCC included funding specifications, such as that the funding is “not to exceed $4,000 for official reception and representation expenses; purchase and hire of motor vehicles; special counsel fees” and other authorized services, and that “not less than $11,090,000 shall be for the salaries and expenses of the Office of Inspector General.” Subcommittee ranking member Jose Serrano, D-N.Y., spoke in opposition to the Financial Services draft budget bill during the Wednesday subcommittee meeting: “There are several agencies in this bill that are not funded properly,” he said. “This is not a bill I can support.” FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler had testified before the House and Senate earlier this year making a strong plea for more money, which would be devoted to such priorities as better agency IT and for enforcement measures. The agency declined comment on the House budget. “I'm still hopeful we can get all these bills through the full committee before July Fourth break,” House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky., said at the subcommittee meeting of several appropriations measures including this one, which he backs. “That’s ambitious, but you're an ambitious people.”

"The current uncertainty over reauthorization” of the Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act “is hampering business development and further growth of the technology sector as a whole,” said an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) spokesman in a news release Tuesday. The House Judiciary Committee will mark up HR-3086 at 10 a.m. in 2141 Rayburn Wednesday (http://1.usa.gov/1kHa87B) (CD June 17 p9). The bill has 214 House co-sponsors (http://1.usa.gov/1l0xbiL). ITIF released a report (http://bit.ly/U6OG6E) last year in support of HR-3086. “The National Governors Association (NGA) is disappointed that the House Judiciary Committee is moving to make the Internet access tax moratorium permanent,” it said in a news release Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1jwNz64). “Federal prohibitions on state taxing authority are contrary to federalism and the sovereign authority of states to structure and manage their own fiscal systems,” said NGA. “The markup is the first step of many to ensure consumers, students, and small businesses are not burdened with new taxes on Internet access that could be as high as double the national sales tax rate,” said Annabelle Canning, Internet Tax Freedom Act Coalition executive director. “We applaud” the committee’s “efforts and hope the Senate will follow suit in moving a companion bill prior to the August recess to ensure Congress extends the Internet tax moratorium before it expires on November 1st."

The Office of Management and Budget supports the Senate Appropriations Committee amendment (http://1.usa.gov/1kLdJBM) to the Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriations Act FY 2015, said OMB in a letter Tuesday (http://1.usa.gov/1pdBFDS). The amendment was expected to be debated on the Senate floor late Tuesday, said a Senate aide. The Senate amendment to HR-4660 allocates $48.5 million to NTIA, compared with $36.7 million in the original House bill (CD June 2 p8), it said.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., released a new draft Tuesday of the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (http://1.usa.gov/1vAZvew). The committee expects to mark up the bill next week, her office said. The bill, which Feinstein has been writing since last year in collaboration with committee Vice Chairman Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., included many parts of the House-passed Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), but has what proponents say are improved privacy protections. The bill has support from many in the communications industry, while privacy advocates who opposed CISPA (HR-624) have said they have significant concerns with the Senate Intelligence bill (CD May 15 p11). House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said last week he was “extremely optimistic” the Senate would pass its CISPA equivalent this year (CD June 13 p10).