The House Judiciary IP Subcommittee will hold its previously scheduled second hearing this month on music licensing (CD June 11 p12) in 2141 Rayburn at 10 a.m. Wednesday (http://1.usa.gov/1pIUuAG). Music industry officials and artist advocates are waiting to see what licensing issues House Judiciary IP Subcommittee ranking member Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., tackles in his in-progress “MusicBus” bill, expected to be introduced this summer (CD June 19 p11). The hearing’s previously confirmed witnesses are musician Rosanne Cash on behalf of the Americana Music Association; Ed Christian, Radio Music License Committee chairman; David Frear, Sirius XM chief financial officer; Chris Harrison, Pandora Media vice president-business affairs; Michael Huppe, CEO of SoundExchange; Cary Sherman, RIAA CEO; Charles Warfield, YMF Media senior adviser on behalf of NAB; and Paul Williams, American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers president. Pandora Media originally scheduled General Counsel Delinda Costin as its witness.

The Senate Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee wants to “fully fund” what it considers two key agencies, it said Tuesday -- the FCC and FTC. It recommended far more money for the FCC in FY 2015 than what the House has begun to suggest. The Senate subcommittee cleared an appropriations bill at a meeting Tuesday morning, recommending $375 million for the FCC in FY 2015 “to ensure that the telecommunications networks are reliable and robust” and $293 million for FTC “to detect and eliminate consumer fraud and promote consumer privacy,” as Subcommittee Chairman Tom Udall, D-N.M., said at the meeting. The FCC had requested $375.38 million for FY 2015 and in FY 2014 received $339.84 million. The House Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee had cleared a bill last week that recommends $322.75 million for the FCC. The House bill would slate $293 million for the FTC, $5 million less than FY 2014’s enacted level and at the White House budget request, with no difference from the Senate subcommittee version. The full House Appropriations Committee will consider that bill Wednesday at 10 a.m. in 2359 Rayburn and this week has released a bill text (http://1.usa.gov/1jLsiWq) and accompanying report (http://1.usa.gov/ViQA4T).

"I don’t know” if AT&T has given money to lobby against municipal broadband networks, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said at a Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee hearing Tuesday. He “personally” is against making a private company compete against networks funded by taxpayer dollars, unless the area is unserved, Stephenson told Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., who pressed the executive on his company’s stance. Franken said many mayors and other municipal officials favor creating such networks. Stephenson repeatedly indicated he wasn’t sure where his company’s lobbying expenses went, declining to answer Franken’s questions about AT&T lobbying on that issue. AT&T is a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council, which has model state legislation restricting municipal networks and that has helped pass state laws of that kind.

Four House Judiciary Committee leaders praised the compromise that Senate Judiciary Committee lawmakers unveiled on a cellphone unlocking bill earlier this week (CD June 24 p10). The Senate language mirrors language the House used in the Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act (HR-1123), passed earlier this year. “This is an issue of consumer choice and flexibility, plain and simple,” said House Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., ranking member John Conyers, D-Mich., and Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet subcommittee Chairman Howard Coble, R-N.C., and that subcommittee’s ranking member Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., in a joint statement.

Comcast’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable brings up several “key concerns,” Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and subcommittee ranking member Mike Lee, R-Utah, told the FCC and Justice Department in a letter Monday. The two-page letter focused on their hearing earlier this year on the deal, and pointed to several issues witnesses had raised. “Witnesses voiced concerns that the merger may negatively affect the development of online video distribution, give the combined entity undue market power as a buyer in the market for programming, and increase the combined entity’s incentive and ability to restrict access to content by rival multichannel video programming distributors,” Klobuchar and Lee said, also citing what they see as the deal’s threats to independent programming. Comcast has argued the deal would be good for consumers, which the senators also mention. Klobuchar and Lee said they plan to keep working with regulators and talking more as the proceeding continues, filing “additional comments once the FCC record is complete.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee field hearing on net neutrality will begin July 1 at 10 a.m. at the Davis Center at the University of Vermont in Burlington, the committee said Tuesday. Witnesses weren’t announced.

Appropriations bills for the FCC and FTC FY15 budgets will receive scrutiny in both the Senate and House this week. Both agencies fall under the review of the Appropriations Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee in each chamber. The Senate panel will review its appropriations bill for the first time Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. in 124 Dirksen. The House subcommittee cleared its appropriations bill last week (CD June 19 p15), and the full House Appropriations Committee will consider that bill Wednesday at 10 a.m. in 2359 Rayburn. That House subcommittee budget would give the FCC $53 million less than the agency’s request: $323 million, $17 million less than FY14’s enacted level. It would allocate $293 million for the FTC, $5 million less than FY14’s enacted level and at the White House budget request.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will soon review a bipartisan compromise on cellphone unlocking, its leaders said in a news release Monday (http://1.usa.gov/1lLU8aB). Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and ranking member Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, forged the deal and added the modified Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act to the agenda for the committee’s Thursday executive session. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., had led an effort in the House, which passed a cellphone unlocking bill (HR-1123) earlier this year. “Consumers should be able to use their existing cell phones when they move their service to a new wireless provider,” Leahy said in a statement, citing work “for months with Ranking Member Grassley, Chairman Goodlatte and House members, consumer advocates and wireless providers” on “common sense legislation that puts consumers first by allowing them to ‘unlock’ their cell phones.” Leahy posted the four-page amendment to S-517 online (http://1.usa.gov/1q1NyyF). “While there are larger ongoing debates about Section 1201 of the DMCA [Digital Millennium Copyright Act], as well as other aspects of phone unlocking, those issues are not addressed by this bill,” a Leahy fact sheet about the legislation said (http://1.usa.gov/1nYrB0g). Judiciary’s Thursday session, which will also address the committee’s Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act bill, is at 9:30 a.m. in 226 Dirksen. CTIA thanked Leahy for trying to “alleviate consumer confusion” and is “pleased this bill achieves that objective without imposing any obligations on carriers,” said Vice President-Government Affairs Jot Carpenter in a statement. The Competitive Carriers Association and Public Knowledge also praised the release of the modified bill. “Not only does the Leahy/Grassley bill restore the right to unlock phones, but it includes provisions that allow for third party help in unlocking a device, as we saw in the House-passed version of this bill,” said Public Knowledge Vice President-Government Relations Chris Lewis.

Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., introduced the Wi-Fi Innovation Act to much praise. S-2505, announced by Rubio earlier this month as part of his focus on spectrum, would require the FCC to test the feasibility of using the 5850-5925 GHz spectrum for unlicensed use, a Rubio news release said Friday (http://1.usa.gov/1pmiB4p). The FCC would have to “conduct testing that would provide more spectrum to the public and ultimately put the resource to better use, while recognizing the future needs and important work being done in intelligent transportation,” Rubio said. The legislation also “authorizes an important study of Wi-Fi deployment in low income communities and the barriers preventing deployment of wireless broadband in those neighborhoods,” Booker said. CEA, the Computer & Communications Industry Association and CTIA back the legislation, they said Friday. The bill “will serve as clear action plan to properly allocate a finite and increasingly necessary public resource,” said NCTA Director-Digital Strategy John Solit in a blog post (http://bit.ly/1pmk5vD). Public Knowledge also lauded the bill. Senior Vice President Harold Feld called it “a road map for agencies to move forward that respects both the need for wireless capacity for safer ’smart cars’ and the need for more open spectrum for the internet of things,” according to a statement the group issued. “If passed, the bill would resolve an ugly traffic jam between the FCC and the Department of Transportation (DoT) that is needlessly delaying the next generation of Wi-Fi technology.” But the Intelligent Transportation Society of America was more cautious. It “supports the collaborative effort, which is already underway, to explore whether a technical solution exists that would allow Wi-Fi devices to operate in the 5.9 GHz band without interfering with these critical safety applications,” President Scott Belcher said. “But this process should be allowed to proceed without arbitrary deadlines, restrictive parameters or political pressure that could influence the outcome."

Don’t wait for Congress to stop government bulk surveillance of phone records, Sens. Mark Udall, D-Colo., Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., told President Barack Obama in a letter Friday (http://bit.ly/1nT7ikA). They applauded Obama’s move to end government surveillance but worry the House-passed version of the amended USA Freedom Act, HR-3361, is now too weak, they said. Congressional action is needed, but Obama “need not wait to end the dragnet collection of millions of Americans’ phone records,” they said, calling it “an imperative that cannot wait.”