The House passed the Eliminating Barriers to Rural Internet Development Grant Eligibility Act (HR-1752) Monday night by a 375-20 vote. The House cleared the measure in 2021 also (see 2111040067). It would ease access to Economic Development Administration grants for broadband projects, allowing the agency to award the money to public-private partnerships and consortiums.

The Senate voted 63-33 Friday afternoon to invoke cloture on the motion to concur on the House-passed Consolidated Appropriations Act FY 2024 appropriations minibus package (HR-4366), which includes cutting annual funding for NTIA and other Commerce Department agencies but a slight increase for the DOJ Antitrust Division (see 2403060062). The cloture vote set up a final vote on the measure as soon as Friday night, but there could be a delay because some Republican senators are seeking floor votes on proposed amendments. Commerce and other federal agencies covered in the minibus would see their appropriations lapse after midnight if the Senate didn't approve HR-4366 by that time.

Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., on Wednesday blocked a request from Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., for unanimous consent on a trio of child-online-safety-related bills. On the Senate floor, Graham had the bipartisan support of Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa; Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.; John Cornyn, R-Texas; and Josh Hawley, R-Mo. They sought passage of the Earn It Act, the Stop Children Suffering from Abuse and Mistreatment (Stop CSAM) Act and the Shield Act (see 2402060084). However, Wyden objected to passage of the Earn It Act and the Stop CSAM Act because they would “weaken” encryption standards by exposing social media companies to liability for securing messages. Weakening encryption will allow child predators to better track and exploit victims, said Wyden. Meanwhile, Booker objected to the Shield Act, a Klobuchar and Cornyn bill that would establish criminal liability for individuals who share or threaten to share intimate content without consent. Sextortion scams resulted in at least 20 victims, including children, dying by suicide in 2022, Klobuchar noted. Booker said he shares the goal of holding criminals liable, but the bill would create “unintended consequences.” The N.J. Democrat said he’s working with Klobuchar on changes in the bill but didn’t specify his concerns on the floor. There’s no disagreement these bills attempt to address the harm caused by “people who are evil to their core," said Wyden, but he said there’s disagreement about how to address that. Wyden said Congress should pass his legislation increasing resources for investigators and prosecutors (see 2402270069). In addition, Wyden said he agrees child abuse is a “horrible plague on the internet,” and criminals need to be “hunted down and locked up.”

President Joe Biden should “refocus on the real harms of Big Tech” during his State of the Union address, including “monopoly power and surveillance capitalism as a business model,” Fight for the Future said Thursday. Biden’s speech was set to begin at 9 p.m. EST. The president “should say clearly that he does not support slashing” the DOJ Antitrust Division’s appropriation for FY 2024, FFTF said. The Senate was expected to vote as soon as Thursday afternoon on the House-passed Consolidated Appropriations Act FY24 appropriations minibus package (HR-4366), which allocates DOJ Antitrust $233 million (see 2403060062). That’s more than 3% above what the agency received for FY 2023 but 28% less than what the Biden administration requested (see 2303130070). The White House has already said it supports the overall minibus. Biden should “call for strong privacy and antitrust legislation rather than legislation that will enable an increase in censorship and the expansion of surveillance,” FFTF said. “What we need are policies that regulate surveillance, not speech, and design, not content. We also need antitrust actions to break up monopolies to ensure there is space for privacy-preserving or community-owned platforms and tools to grow. We’d like to hear” Biden "champion ... antitrust enforcement by supporting agencies and giving them the tools and budget they need to do their jobs.”

Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist and more than two-dozen others, including former aides to ex-FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, believe House Speaker Mike Johnson (La.) and other congressional GOP leaders should “swiftly hold NTIA accountable” for “weaponizing” the broadband equity, access and deployment program. NTIA appears to be violating language in the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that bars rate regulation in the BEAD program by forcing "a $30 per month mandate on all states that participate,” Norquist and the others wrote in a letter to Republican leaders released Thursday. NTIA is instead instituting a “price fix by proxy” that rejects state BEAD applications "until the desired price point is included,” they added. The rate regulation opponents cited NTIA’s rejection last year of the Virginia Office of Broadband’s Volume 2 application “because ‘the low-cost option must be established in the Initial proposal as an exact price or formula.’” Virginia “has proposed multiple compromises between their desired market-driven approach to middle class affordability and NTIA’s preferred $30 per month mandate, but all have been rejected,” Norquist and the others told the GOP lawmakers, including House Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash.) and Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz (Texas). “NTIA may try to hide behind the fig leaf of state-level cut-outs, but their repeated rejections of reasonable alternatives betray their agenda,” the letter said. NTIA’s actions are “a direct violation of federal law” and run counter to Administrator Alan Davidson’s promise during a December House Communications Subcommittee hearing (see 2312050076) “that his agency would not require rate regulation” of BEAD participants. House Commerce Republicans renewed their rate regulation concerns to NTIA later that month (see 2312180063). NTIA didn’t immediately comment.

Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on Wednesday said he would request unanimous consent that evening for passage of several child-safety-related bills, as expected (see 2402060084). The committee has approved five different bills, including the Earn It Act, which Graham highlighted in his announcement Wednesday. UC fails if one senator objects. In February, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., blocked an attempt by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., to approve the Stop Children Suffering from Abuse and Mistreatment (Stop CSAM) Act by unanimous consent, one of the committee-passed bills (see 2402070056).

Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called Wednesday for Congress to substantially rein in the FCC's autonomy in setting USF spending and creating new programs amid a bicameral working group’s examination of a possible universal service revamp (see 2305110066). “Caught in a dilemma of wanting to further expand USF programs but having already maxed out the level of taxation American consumers can reasonably tolerate, the conversation at the FCC and in Congress has focused on expanding the pool of companies and products subject to” the USF contribution factor, which is effectively a “tax on the working class,” Cruz said in a paper. “This approach is anything but fair to American taxpayers: it would hide the problem of excessive USF taxation rather than fix it and ultimately make tax burdens worse by emboldening further unaccountable spending growth.” Instead, he said Congress should “take charge of defining universal service and deciding where USF funds may go.” Cruz proposes making most USF programs subject to congressional appropriations but believes “it may make sense to keep the High-Cost program within the current” funding framework “given ongoing multiyear commitments to providers.” Congress should eliminate “duplicative” USF spending, including combining the Lifeline program with the currently independent affordable connectivity program, given perceptions that the “federal government has too many broadband programs, and a poor record of coordinating them,” Cruz said. He also proposes curbing the FCC’s expansion of E-rate eligibility, citing concerns about permitting schools and libraries to use program support for off-premises Wi-Fi hot spots and wireless internet services (see 2311090028).

Senate Commerce Space Subcommittee Chair Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., said Tuesday she won’t seek reelection this year. Sinema has been a frequent foil within the Democratic caucus on telecom issues, including legislative attempts to reinstate the FCC’s rescinded 2015 net neutrality order (see 1903120078). It was also believed she was a skeptic about confirming now-former FCC nominee Gigi Sohn last year (see 2303030074). Sinema cited growing partisanship and fractiousness on Capitol Hill as the reason for her exit. “I believe in my” bipartisan approach to lawmaking, “but it’s not what America wants right now,” she said in a video message.

The House is set to vote as soon as Tuesday night on the NTIA Reauthorization Act (HR-4510) and 988 Lifeline Cybersecurity Responsibility Act (HR-498) under suspension of the rules, the office of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said Friday. HR-498, which the House Commerce Committee advanced last year, would amend the 2020 National Suicide Hotline Designation Act to require improved coordination and reporting on potential cybersecurity vulnerabilities within the 988 Lifeline, with the goal of mitigating future cyberattacks and preventing disruption of services (see 2304050080). The House Commerce-cleared HR-4510 would elevate the NTIA administrator from assistant secretary to undersecretary of Commerce and proposes other steps to improve coordination of federal spectrum (see 2307270063).

President Joe Biden should recommend the FCC establish minimum cybersecurity standards for wireless carriers to protect Americans' cellphone data from surveillance by China, Russia and other countries, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., wrote the White House Thursday. Wyden detailed how foreign entities have allegedly exploited flaws in “obscure technologies” like diameter and signaling system 7, which wireless companies use for texting and roaming purposes around the world. The FCC should “require companies buying access to SS7 and Diameter by leasing Global Titles to comply with registration and know your customer requirements,” he said. Global titles are unique addresses carriers use to route signaling messages. Wyden also urged OMB to “establish minimum cybersecurity standards for wireless services purchased by federal agencies.” The White House didn’t comment.