The House Commerce Committee plans to mark up three telecom bills this week: The Anti-Spoofing Act of 2013 (HR-3670), the E-LABEL Act (HR-5161) and the Kelsey Smith Act (HR-1575). Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, had offered an amendment in the nature of a substitute to the Anti-Spoofing Act, updating the Truth in Caller ID Act of 2009, “to focus the bill on specific text messaging and voice over Internet protocol services,” said the GOP memo for the markup (http://1.usa.gov/1lOjCQ5). The E-LABEL Act would remove a requirement that electronics manufacturers display a physical label of FCC approval. The Kelsey Smith Act “would require telecommunications carriers to share call location data with law enforcement when it is necessary to respond to an emergency call or in an emergency situation where a person’s life may be in danger,” the memo said. “The law also provides liability protection for companies that provide the data to law enforcement.” House Commerce lawmakers will begin the markup session Tuesday at 4 p.m. in 2123 Rayburn to give opening statements and then reconvene there at 10 a.m. Wednesday to complete the markup.

Congress should embrace the surveillance overhaul compromise bill that Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., is preparing to unveil this week, The New York Times editorial board said (http://nyti.ms/1zmVSed). The bill, not yet released but expected to be announced Tuesday, is a “breakthrough” and “a significant improvement over the halfhearted measure passed by the House in May,” the board said. The legislation is based on a measure Leahy introduced last fall, known as the USA Freedom Act. The House passed a version of the USA Freedom Act that many privacy advocates and lawmakers said was far too watered down. Leahy’s revised bill “would require the agency to ask for the records of a specific person or address it is tracking, instead of conducting a broad dragnet of an entire area code or city in the hopes of turning up something useful,” the board said. “The new bill would also make the process more transparent by requiring the government to disclose how many people’s data was collected by intelligence agencies, and how many of those people were American.” Leahy should add a provision on backdoor surveillance, “a proposal requiring the government to get the court’s permission before examining communications of Americans that were collected when tracking foreigners,” the board added.

CTIA sees spectrum as its top priority, it plans to tell the House Tuesday: “Congress therefore must encourage the [FCC] to do everything necessary to ensure that these [spectrum] auctions are successful and on schedule,” Executive Vice President Chris Guttman-McCabe plans to say, according to his written testimony, at a House Agriculture Subcommittee on Livestock, Rural Development and Credit hearing on broadband investment. He will advocate for less regulation for the wireless industry and a “predictable, expedited process for seeking siting approvals,” as well as the removal of barriers to the deployment of fiber. The hearing will begin at 10 a.m. in 1300 Longworth. Rural Utilities Service Administrator John Padalino is also scheduled to testify, as is USTelecom Vice President-Policy David Cohen; Robert Hance, CEO of the Midwest Energy Cooperative on behalf of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association; and Lang Zimmerman, vice president of Yelcot Communications on behalf of NTCA. Zimmerman plans to focus on the funding that rural companies need. “Unfortunately, the success, momentum, and economic development achieved from the RUS’s telecommunication programs were put at risk as a result of the regulatory uncertainty arising out of USF reforms,” he will say, according to written testimony. “It will be all the more important to continue providing RUS with the resources it needs to lend to the rural telecom industry as demand for financing will inevitably increase when reforms are improved and small carriers are given certainty, hopefully through a program like the Connect America Fund that is designed to promote broadband investment.” He will also talk about the urgency with which rural companies require access to such funding, warning against the possible implementation delays that could come from any major tweaks in reauthorizing the farm bill. “Thankfully, it appears that the final Farm Bill left RUS with discretion in administering the program that grants sufficient leeway to make it function more smoothly than the initial Senate Farm Bill would've allowed,” Zimmerman will say. Congress should give “an express directive” to the FCC to broaden “the [USF] contribution base to include the information services that USF already supports,” he will say.

The House Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet plans a hearing Thursday on the Patent and Trademark Office and the America Invents Act (AIA), said its website (http://1.usa.gov/1t4Yfl8). Congress has been trying to update AIA, despite its having become law fewer than three years ago. However, the Innovation Act (HR-3309) stalled in the Senate after passing the House, and is not seen likely to move this Congress (CD May 23 p3). Thursday’s hearing will be at 3 p.m. in 2141 Rayburn. Witnesses weren’t announced.

A key House Democrat plans to make data caps a priority this week. House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., plans a briefing Tuesday at 10:15 a.m. in room H-137 of the Capitol to highlight the findings of a GAO study on the topic she requested. GAO staff will also attend the briefing. “The GAO will outline their preliminary findings from consumer focus groups conducted nationwide and interviews with key stakeholders, including broadband providers, Internet companies and consumer groups,” Eshoo said in a statement. “As the FCC continues to seek comment on its proposed net neutrality rules, it’s more important than ever that policymakers understand data caps and how they might enable broadband providers to circumvent open Internet rules that ensure consumers have uninhibited access to the Internet.” Eight focus groups were held across four U.S. cities, an Eshoo aide told us Friday. Eshoo intends to submit these findings to the FCC as part of its net neutrality proceeding, the aide said. He emphasized that the concerns about data caps are really not so different from those for paid prioritization deals -- and more importantly, aren’t hypothetical, with major companies moving forward with plans that feature sponsored data and caps. The overall attention on net neutrality makes this issue especially relevant, the aide said.

The House Small Business Committee may hold an oversight hearing on various telecom and media issues after the August congressional recess, one House aide told us. He said a variety of issues may come up, including net neutrality, broadband deployment, media consolidation and universal service policy. No hearing is currently scheduled. The committee has invited FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler to testify in September, industry officials told us, and one official said the topic is net neutrality.

Reps. Bob Latta, R-Ohio, and Gene Green, D-Texas, urged Senate Commerce Committee leaders to retain in the Senate version of the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act reauthorization legislation the House language on the set-top box integration ban. In a letter sent Friday, they asked the Senate to swiftly approve the House legislation (HR-4572), which the House passed last week (CD July 23 p1). Latta and Green authored the integration provision that became part of the House STELA bill. The Senate Commerce Committee is expected to unveil STELA reauthorization legislation in September.

Mediacom tore into the arguments of TVFreedom, a coalition of broadcast interests including NAB, in a Friday letter (http://bit.ly/1ph5SB9) to Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. McCaskill has attacked the billing practices of pay-TV providers and begun investigating them, eyeing eventual legislation, which has earned great praise from TVFreedom. Mediacom dismissed TVFreedom’s minimization of broadcast blackouts and argued they far exceed what a TVFreedom spokesman has touted. Broadcasters fear bringing transparency to wholesale billing practices of local TV stations, which could “shine a light” on all the money broadcasters receive from retransmission consent negotiation, Mediacom said, suggesting that Missouri broadcasters disclose what rates they charge pay-TV providers. In response to Mediacom’s letter, a TVFreedom spokesman reiterated the problems he sees with “deceptive billing practices” of pay-TV companies. “Cable and satellite TV providers should be holding themselves accountable for billing errors and more fully examining the negative impact that high equipment rental fees and unnecessary or inflated charges are having on their customers,” the spokesman said. “This is a real market failure that needs to be addressed."

Cellphone unlocking legislation is heading to the White House for presidential signature. The House unanimously approved the Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act (S-517) Friday, which the Senate approved earlier this month. “Once the President signs this bill into law, consumers will be able to more easily use their existing cell phones on the wireless carrier of their choice,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said in a statement. Leahy had introduced a bipartisan compromise version of this bill earlier this year. The Competitive Carriers Association issued a statement praising the House vote. President Barack Obama plans to sign the bill, he said in a statement. “The bill Congress passed today is another step toward giving ordinary Americans more flexibility and choice, so that they can find a cell phone carrier that meets their needs and their budget,” Obama said. CTIA, Consumers Union and Public Knowledge offered praise, as did Republican FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai. “Contract law -- not copyright or criminal law -- should govern the relationship between consumers and wireless carriers,” Pai said. “This measure will help the free market for wireless phones and services flourish -- freedom that I hope will soon extend to tablets and other wireless devices.”

Stakeholders aired ongoing concerns following Thursday’s House Communications Subcommittee legislative hearing on a proposed low-power TV bill. During the hearing, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, defended his draft version of the LPTV and Translator Preservation Act, which proposes to help those entities amid the FCC’s broadcast TV incentive auction (CD July 25 p8). “The spectacle we saw today in this Hearing, having a witness who is funded by the full power broadcast industry, and is from an organization which does not disclose how many LPTV members it has, creates for the industry a very bad taste and raw emotions,” said Mike Gravino, director of the LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition, in a statement. “Then, to erroneously attempt to blame the FCC for how the Incentive Spectrum Act legislation was written, and to do it while the LPTV industry is facing a collective $1 billion unfunded mandate for channel relocations, creates real and direct harm for these small and diverse businesses.” Gravino was referring to Advanced Broadcasting TV Alliance Executive Director Louis Libin, who last week blasted Gravino’s concerns as “silly” and defended to us his alliance’s majority funding from Sinclair (CD July 24 p6). Jim McDonald, who heads the National Translator Association, also issued a long statement noting that “surprisingly” the subcommittee had refused testimony from his group and that “an important historical and consequential perspective of this matter was left undiscussed” due to its absence. “While the NTA would like to believe that the bill discussed today will have a favorable effect on TV translators and LPTV stations in the anticipated spectrum auction, the FCC’s history with our service is all too well documented,” McDonald said, laying out the history of TV translator struggles. National Religious Broadcasters President Jerry Johnson issued a statement following the hearing urging “Congress to ascertain what steps the FCC will be taking to keep low-power stations from simply being forced off the air.”