Nearly 200 companies, associations and individuals asked Congress and President-elect Joe Biden to let Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals participants remain in the U.S. “As our country looks to the future and we consider how to build a more prosperous, just, and fair nation, we urge both Congress and the new administration to make clear their commitment to reforming our nation’s outdated, broken immigration system,” they said Tuesday: “We especially call on Congress to come together and quickly provide a pathway to citizenship that would allow Dreamers to stay in the U.S. and become fully integrated.” Apple, Best Buy, Facebook, Google, HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Target, Verizon and Walmart signed, with BSA|The Software Alliance, the Information Technology Industry Council, the National Retail Federation and the Retail Industry Leaders Association.

The Society of Professional Journalists asked President-elect Joe Biden to end restrictions “exacerbated” during President Donald Trump’s administration that bar federal offices from speaking to the news media without oversight by public information officers or other authorities. The rules “amount to extreme censorship and damage everyone’s understanding of government,” said SPJ President Matthew Hall in a Tuesday letter to Biden. “It is deep negligence to expect that agencies that control the public scrutiny of themselves will not develop critical weaknesses or that they will not be subjected to political interference.” Biden’s transition team didn’t comment.

NTCA and others praised House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., Senate GOP Whip John Thune of South Dakota and more than 150 other members of Congress Tuesday for sending an anticipated letter urging the FCC to increase scrutiny of applicants for future phases of the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (see 2101130062). Three entities won more than $3.6 billion of the $9.2 billion allocated via the RDOF Phase I reverse auction (see 2012070039). “Real work is only just beginning to ensure that broadband is delivered as promised to millions of rural Americans,” said NTCA Chief Executive Officer Shirley Bloomfield. “There is far too much money at stake and far too many consumers on hold to gamble on confidential promises about unproven service capabilities that might only be found to fall short years from now.” The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association “supports lawmakers’ call for a thorough vetting of long-form applications and additional supporting submissions, because we are concerned that some RDOF winners do not have the technical and financial capability to provide the service promised,” an NRECA spokesperson emailed.

Opaque content moderation decisions by big tech companies, particularly regarding conservatives, deserve scrutiny, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., wrote Friday to executives at Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple and Twitter. He asked whether companies coordinated recent decisions on restrictions and permanent bans after the Capitol riot, what the decision process involved and how the timeline played out.

House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mike Doyle, D-Pa., and Consumer Protection Subcommittee Chair Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., will remain in those roles during this Congress, as expected (see 2011020048), the Commerce Committee said Friday. Oversight Subcommittee Chair Diana DeGette, D-Colo., will also retain that role. Four Democrats are joining House Communications: Angie Craig of Minnesota, Lizzie Fletcher of Texas, Robin Kelly of Illinois and Kathleen Rice of New York. All but Kelly are new Commerce members (see 2012180059). DeGette and Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., exited the subpanel. Five Democrats are joining Consumer Protection: Craig, Fletcher, Rice, Lori Trahan of Massachusetts and Yvette Clarke of New York. Reps. Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware and Marc Veasey of Texas left the subcommittee.

President-elect Joe Biden’s proposal for an initial COVID-19 aid package during his administration contains no money specifically set aside for broadband buildouts, though it includes connectivity assistance. He appeared to presage a larger-scale broadband funding request during a Thursday speech. Biden said his planned “second step,” which he will propose to Congress next month, will include “historic investments” in infrastructure. “It’s time to stop talking about infrastructure and finally start building it,” after President Donald Trump’s administration failed to translate interest in the issue into results over the last four years, Biden said. He intimated the proposal would mirror those he unveiled during the presidential campaign that suggested $2 trillion in infrastructure spending, including to allow for “universal” access to broadband and 5G (see 2007140065). Congress allocated almost $7 billion last month for broadband in an FY 2021 appropriations and COVID-19 aid omnibus measure (see 2012210055). Biden’s initial aid tranche urges Congress to “give Tribes the resources they need” to “expand internet access so that children can learn remotely and more families can obtain basic health care through telemedicine.” Biden also seeks $1 billion in Temporary Assistance to Needy Families funding, citing “increased TANF caseloads” amid the pandemic that include “the need for internet access for remote schooling.” The plan proposes additional funding to improve federal IT security, citing Russian government-sponsored hackers’ penetration of federal cyber defenses via vulnerabilities in SolarWinds Orion software (see 2012170050). The proposed outlays include $9 billion for technology modernization fund expansion and $690 million for the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

Eight new Republicans are joining the House Commerce Committee, including six who were already known to be pursuing seats (see 2012180059), ranking member Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington said Thursday. The new GOP members are: Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota, Dan Crenshaw of Texas, John Curtis of Utah, Neal Dunn of Florida, John Joyce of Pennsylvania, Debbie Lesko of Arizona, Gary Palmer of Alabama and Greg Pence of Indiana. Five Democrats also joined the committee, leaving its ratio at 32 Democrats and 26 Republicans. All new Republicans “bring invaluable expertise and knowledge to lead on policies that will improve people’s lives in every region of the country,” McMorris Rodgers said. “People expect results, and they made that clear when they sent a significant number of Republicans this cycle to the People’s House. That’s why I made sure” House Commerce’s “ratios reflected these historic gains.”

The Senate Homeland Security Committee plans a Tuesday confirmation hearing for Secretary of Homeland Security-designate Alejandro Mayorkas. President-elect Joe Biden is expected to formally nominate Mayorkas when he takes office next week (see 2011170067). The hearing begins at 10 a.m., the committee said.

Rep. Anna Eshoo and 12 other Democratic members of California’s House delegation urged Attorney General-designate Merrick Garland to “withdraw” DOJ from the federal government’s lawsuit at U.S. District Court for Eastern California challenging that state’s net neutrality law (case 2:18-cv-02660). The department is expected to leave that legal challenge once President-elect Joe Biden takes office next week (see 2101070067). The arguments DOJ and industry groups made in U.S. v. California “extend further than even the FCC’s” order rescinding its 2015 net neutrality rules “and have implications on the ability of California and other states to regulate many communications and technology policy issues,” Eshoo and others wrote Garland Tuesday. Others signing the letter were House Communications Subcommittee Vice Chair Doris Matsui, Jared Huffman, Ro Khanna, Barbara Lee, Mike Levin, Ted Lieu, Jerry McNerney, Jimmy Panetta, Jackie Speier, Eric Swalwell, Mike Thompson and Mark Takano. Biden’s transition team and DOJ didn’t comment Wednesday.

AT&T wants the federal government to “modernize and digitize” Lifeline and put the program’s funding “on a more stable footing” in 2021, blogged Executive Vice President-Federal Regulatory Relations Joan Marsh Wednesday The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and other federal aid programs “allow participants to seamlessly receive benefits and make payments electronically via an electronic card system,” and Lifeline “should do the same.” The “subsidy must be updated to support the full cost of broadband connectivity,” Marsh said. “In lieu” of a tax on “traditional interstate voice services, we have advocated for direct Congressional appropriations to meet the growing broadband affordability needs.” She urged the federal government fully utilize the $65 million that Congress allocated in FY 2021 for implementing the Broadband Deployment Accuracy and Technological Availability Act (see 2012210055) because more accurate connectivity maps “will allow us to precisely target subsidy dollars to close any remaining rural broadband gaps.” Marsh urged continuing "to support connectivity goals in a technology-neutral manner so long as they can meet defined performance criteria.”