DOJ should assess whether legislation is necessary for a central bank digital currency in the U.S. (see 2203090072), Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee wrote Attorney General Merrick Garland Wednesday. They requested an assessment and any related legislative proposal by Oct. 15, in a letter led by ranking member Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., citing President Joe Biden’s executive order on the matter: “The appropriate place for the discussion on whether authorizing legislation is necessary, is in the legislative branch. ... Both Federal Reserve Chairman Powell and Vice Chair Lael Brainard have also testified on the need for authorizing legislation.”

The New Democrat Coalition endorsed the American Data Privacy and Protection Act Tuesday (see 2209290059). Chaired by Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington, the coalition said the House Commerce Committee-passed bill will establish a comprehensive, national standard that puts consumers in control of personal information by “limiting data collection and algorithmic harms, strengthening protections for children’s data, and prohibiting discrimination based on personal data.” The coalition has disagreed with other Democrats over tech-related antitrust legislation (see 2107060072).

The National Treasury Employees Union endorsed FCC nominee Gigi Sohn as the Senate adjourned Thursday for a six-week pre-election recess. Sohn’s confirmation process has been stalled since March, but Hill supporters believe her confirmation prospects will improve once the Senate returns in November for the lame-duck session (see 2209130065). The White House is continuing to hold out for a Senate vote on Sohn, but lobbyists told us the Biden administration is considering at least two potential candidates to replace her if she fails to make it through: former acting NTIA Administrator Anna Gomez, ex-Wiley (see 2207010056), and NASA Chief of Staff Susie Perez Quinn. NTEU-affiliated FCC staffers “benefit when there is sound and stable leadership at the agency, and we are concerned with the continued vacancy,” National President Anthony Reardon said in a letter to Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. Sohn “is a highly qualified nominee,” knows “the agency well and she would be an excellent member of the Commission. Furthermore, I feel that any further delay in the confirmation of her nomination threatens to inhibit progress at the FCC to the detriment of both the workforce and the American consumer.” It’s “time for the country to allow this Commission and its employees to be fully staffed and functioning,” Reardon said.

Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and House Commerce Committee ranking member Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., urged NTIA Friday to encourage streamlining of permitting processes for recipients of money from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act’s $42.5 billion broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program. “With inflation already raising costs, we cannot afford to waste time and resources on needless bureaucracy when we should be building networks,” the GOP leaders said in a letter to NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson. “Without action, we worry that deployments will take longer and be more expensive, leaving more Americans on the wrong side of the digital divide.” NTIA should “require states and territories to work with their local governments to streamline permitting processes to expedite and reduce barriers to deployment,” Rodgers and Wicker said: “We are encouraged” that BEAD’s notice of funding opportunity (see 2205130054) “asks states to identify steps to reduce deployment barriers, including streamlined permitting processes, and encourages state and territorial governments to expedite permitting timelines," but “merely encouraging and promoting these actions … is not enough.” NTIA should “require states and territories to work with local governments to adopt streamlining policies that reduce the burdens associated with obtaining permits,” the lawmakers said. The agency “should also set a high bar for the ‘other critical policy goals’ that states and localities can use to justify burdensome permitting regulations so that the exception does not become the rule.”

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., and Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., led filing Thursday of the Broadband Grant Tax Treatment Act, in a bid to ensure broadband funding from the Infrastructure Investment Jobs Act and American Rescue Plan Act doesn’t count as taxable income. The measure would amend the Internal Revenue Code to say broadband grants enacted via either statute don’t count as “gross income.” Every “dollar that was set aside to fund broadband expansion and deployment should be used for that purpose,” Warner said: “Taxing these broadband investments awards would be counter-productive, and could ultimately diminish efforts to give more Americans access to high-speed internet.” Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Roger Wicker, R-Miss., is among four other senators who signed on as original co-sponsors. “Taxing broadband grants … will dramatically reduce the impact of these programs and likely leave the hardest-to-reach communities without essential connectivity for even longer,” said NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield. “It is critical that all broadband grant funds go toward their intended purpose of network deployment.” Requiring “grant recipients to return as much as 20 percent of those grants in the form of taxes jeopardizes our shared goal of universal connectivity,” said USTelecom Senior Vice President-Government Affairs Brandon Heiner. “It is vital that Congress move to eliminate this tax, as America’s broadband providers carefully plan and prepare to allocate resources to connect as many Americans as possible." Warner’s office also cited support from WTA.

The Senate voted 72-25 Thursday to pass the continuing resolution to extend federal appropriations and renew the FCC’s spectrum auction authority through Dec. 16 (HR-6833), as expected (see 2209280064). The House was expected to vote on the measure Friday. President Joe Biden plans to sign it.

The House voted 242-184 Thursday to pass the Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act (HR-3843) (see 2209260060). It initially passed by voice vote, but House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, called for an official count. The bill raises fees for larger transactions and lowers the fee for small and medium deals, ensuring the FTC and DOJ receive fair compensation for their merger reviews, said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., on the floor Thursday. Jordan said the estimated $140 million annually for each agency will result in more unnecessary government bureaucracy and politically driven harassment. Public Knowledge welcomed the vote. “For many years, antitrust enforcers feared that Congress would cut their funding if they did too much to protect consumers and promote a healthy marketplace,” said Competition Policy Director Charlotte Slaiman. “Now Congress speaks clearly on antitrust: The strategy of underenforcement is over.”

The Senate could "finish its work" as soon as Thursday on a continuing resolution that would extend federal funding through Dec. 16 and renew the FCC's spectrum auction authority to the same date (see 2209270071), Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a Wednesday floor speech. The chamber invoked cloture Tuesday on a motion to proceed to the CR with a 72-23 vote. An expedited Senate vote will depend on '"cooperation from our Republican colleagues" to shorten floor debate, said Schumer, who filed the CR as an amendment to shell bill HR-6833.

A continuing resolution to extend federal appropriations past Friday that Senate Democratic leaders bowed Monday includes a renewal of the FCC’s spectrum auction authority through Dec. 16, as expected (see 2209210076). Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., filed the CR as an amendment to shell bill HR-6833. The chamber was to vote Tuesday night on invoking cloture on the motion to proceed to the proposed CR amid questions about whether it would get support from 60 senators needed to clear that threshold. Former FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly hailed the breakthrough as “good news.” Now “policymakers can take requisite time, usually up to a year or more, to build a long awaited spectrum pipeline law,” he tweeted Tuesday. “While it's not enough long term, it at least kicks the can and avoids a lapse in authority,” tweeted R Street Institute Technology & Innovation Policy Counsel Jonathan Cannon.

The House expects to vote this week on a series of bipartisan antitrust bills with implications for the tech industry, House Antitrust Subcommittee ranking member Ken Buck, R-Colo., said Monday. Votes are expected on the Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act (see 2106250062), the State Antitrust Enforcement Venue Act (see 2202090066) and the Foreign Merger Subsidy Disclosure Act. The merger filing bill would increase fees for larger companies to enhance resources for enforcers. The venue bill would give state attorneys general more discretion over where they litigate cases, and the third bill would require merger filing disclosures of subsidies from countries like China.