Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., pressed Comcast on its net neutrality obligations, in a letter to Comcast CEO Brian Roberts Wednesday. “I am concerned that Comcast’s proposed acquisition of TWC is a threat to net neutrality and the open Internet,” Franken wrote (http://1.usa.gov/1kttEsm). “If Comcast were permitted to acquire TWC, it would make the nation’s biggest ISP even bigger, raising a serious risk that Comcast could act as a gatekeeper of Internet traffic on its networks. The existence of ‘full net neutrality rules’ is absolutely necessary, though likely not sufficient, to mitigate that risk.” Franken asked whether Comcast would abide by existing anti-blocking and anti-discrimination net neutrality requirements, first levied on Comcast as an obligation of acquiring NBCUniversal, beyond the January 2018 time set in that acquisition condition. Franken wants to know whether the cable company will maintain those protections “regardless of whether the FCC has implemented new and binding industry-wide net neutrality rules at that time,” he said. Comcast has defended its commitment to the net neutrality obligations and the potential consumer benefits of acquiring Time Warner Cable.

To delay NTIA’s transition of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, an amendment (http://1.usa.gov/1tlq9Hn) version of the Domain Openness Through Continued Oversight Matters Act will be submitted to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) (HR-4435) by House Commerce Committee Member and bill co-sponsor John Shimkus, R-Ill., Wednesday, said his spokesman. The act seeks to delay the transition until the GAO completes a study. “There is far too much at stake to rush this process or agree to a transition without a full understanding of the consequences,” said Shimkus in a House Commerce Committee news release (http://1.usa.gov/1gQraVW). “If the Internet’s core freedoms are lost, there is no going back.” The NDAA amendment was expected to be considered Wednesday on the House floor. The vote is expected Thursday, said the spokesman.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., lambasted the FCC NPRM on net neutrality. “If the FCC allows huge corporations to negotiate ‘fast lane deals,’ then the Internet will eventually be sold to the highest bidder,” Sanders said Tuesday on the Senate floor. “This is grotesquely unfair and this will be a disaster for our economy and for small businesses all across our country.” He thanked Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel for their defense of net neutrality and questioned the positions of Commissioners Aji Pai and Mike O'Rielly. “When you talk about deregulating the Internet, you're talking about allowing money, big money, to talk,” which is “very, very wrong,” Sanders said. Internet providers should be treated like utilities, Sanders said. He recounted asking Vermont residents to weigh in on the possibility of regulators’ “attempt to do away with” net neutrality. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has defended his proposal as one that asks questions, including whether to attempt to ban paid prioritization deals and if so, how, and also emphasizes that as of now, there are no net neutrality protections in the U.S. (CD May 16 p1).

The Senate must pass the Expiring Provisions Improvement Reform and Efficiency (EXPIRE) Act, a group including CTIA, Fiber to the Home Council Americas, ITTA-the Voice of Mid-Size Telecommunications Carriers, NCTA, TechNet, the Telecommunications Industry Association and USTelecom told all U.S senators in a letter sent Tuesday. “The EXPIRE Act will extend the tax provisions that expired at the end of 2013,” which “benefit a wide range of taxpayers,” the letter said (http://bit.ly/R9RiP8). “The lack of timely action to extend these provisions injects instability and uncertainty into the economy and weakens confidence in the employment marketplace.” Don’t wait until the end of the year since companies are making choices now, the letter added. Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., introduced the act and it cleared that committee April 28. It includes a provision on bonus depreciation that several industry stakeholders have sought from Congress in recent months.

The modified USA Freedom Act, HR-3361, lost support from several privacy advocate organizations before a House floor vote Thursday. Organizations pulled their backing after a latest, more heavily revised version of the bill (http://1.usa.gov/1nqlPmk) was unveiled by the Rules Committee Tuesday (CD May 21 p12), inspiring immediate dissent. It cleared the Judiciary and Intelligence committees in recent weeks in a different form. The act was “designed to prohibit bulk collection, but has been made so weak that it fails to adequately protect against mass, untargeted collection of Americans’ private information,” said Center for Democracy & Technology President Nuala O'Connor, withdrawing her group’s backing. “The bill now offers only mild reform and goes against the overwhelming support for definitively ending bulk collection.” New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute also withdrew support. “Although we are still hopeful that the bill’s language will end the bulk collection of telephone records and prevent indiscriminate collection of other types of records, it may still allow data collection on a dangerously massive scale,” said OTI Policy Counsel Robyn Greene. The Electronic Frontier Foundation “cannot support a bill that doesn’t achieve the goal of ending mass spying,” it said. Access, the group promoting what it calls global digital freedom, also dropped support. “Today’s version would allow broad collection to continue under the guise of reform,” said Jennifer Granick, director of civil liberties at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, in a blog post (http://bit.ly/1tkFOGU). The Senate will have to “make extensive improvements” to what is a “limited” version now, said the American Civil Liberties Union. Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., appeared before the Rules Committee Tuesday night speaking in favor of the new bill, also citing a statement of support from ranking member John Conyers, D-Mich. “This does end all government bulk collection of data, and not just the telephone data that’s been the subject of the public discussion here but any others than the government might do or wish to do in the future,” Goodlatte told Rules. President Barack Obama’s administration “strongly supports” swift House and subsequently Senate passage of the bill, the Office of Management and Budget said Wednesday (http://1.usa.gov/RUXdIm). The legislation “heeds the President’s call” on surveillance overhaul and strikes an appropriate balance, OMB said. Its “significant reforms would provide the public greater confidence in our programs and the checks and balances in the system,” OMB said. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., sponsor of the original Senate companion to the act, said during an oversight hearing of the FBI Wednesday that he is “concerned” about the changes to the House version.

The House may vote this week on the USA Freedom Act, HR-3361, said Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., laying out the weekly vote schedule. The Rules Committee posted the latest version of the bill Tuesday (http://1.usa.gov/1gLP4BP), which privacy advocates now say may be watered down. The USA Freedom Act was introduced last fall with the intention of ending the government’s bulk collection of phone metadata, and recently cleared the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees. The Rules Committee brought up the bill Tuesday in conjunction with considering amendments for HR-4435, the National Defense Authorization Act, also slated for a possible vote this week. Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., is seeking to amend HR-4435 to stop government surveillance activities in a separate maneuver, amid fears that the USA Freedom Act may be watered down. “The Amash Amendment to the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (#NDAA) is materially identical to language in the #USAFREEDOMAct that unanimously passed both the House Committee on the Judiciary and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence two weeks ago,” Amash wrote on Facebook. “I will be monitoring progress on the Freedom Act, and I hope that my amendment will be unnecessary."

The Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for FY2015 (HR-4660) is tentatively scheduled for debate on the House floor sometime next week, said a House Republican leadership aide. The House Rules Committee approved the bill for full House consideration Monday (http://bit.ly/1jSepUY). That bill would provide $36.7 million for the NTIA, below the $51 million the executive branch requested (http://1.usa.gov/1iT4f6q). The funding would not include money for NTIA’s plan to transition the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, which many Republicans have criticized, the appropriations committee has said. Some Internet governance experts see HR-4660 as potentially more damaging to NTIA’s transition plan than the Domain Openness Through Continued Oversight Matters Act, which passed the House Commerce Committee May 8 (CD May 9 p10).

House and Senate committees will examine patent revamp issues Thursday. The Senate Judiciary Committee included the oft-delayed markup of the Patent Transparency and Improvements Act (S-1720) as the only agenda item for its weekly business meeting Thursday, although the committee had not released an eagerly anticipated compromise manager’s amendment at our deadline Monday. The meeting is to begin at 9:30 a.m. in 226 Dirksen (http://1.usa.gov/1ox3Lea). An industry lobbyist expressed skepticism about the prospects for a Thursday markup given disagreements within the committee over provisions on heightened pleading and discovery requirements. Meanwhile, the House Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade plans to hold a hearing Thursday on draft legislation from Chairman Lee Terry, R-Neb., that would require entities sending pre-litigation demand letters to include additional identifying information (http://1.usa.gov/1oJVlQO). The bill would also give the FTC and state governments more power to prosecute entities that abuse demand letters (http://1.usa.gov/1lVUsBl). The hearing is to begin at 9:15 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn.

Communications Act Section 706 provides a framework “sufficient to give us the authority to adopt and implement robust rules” for net neutrality protections, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler will tell the House Communications Subcommittee Tuesday, according to his written testimony (http://1.usa.gov/R185ns). The subcommittee scheduled an FCC oversight hearing for 10:30 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn, with Wheeler as the sole witness. Wheeler described the virtues of his net neutrality NPRM, begun last week in a 3-2 vote (CD May 16 ). “The Notice we adopted asks whether the best path forward is under Title II,” Wheeler said. “The entire purpose of an NPRM is to give Americans the ability to express themselves and provide analysis and guidance.” Wheeler’s 12-page testimony addressed many FCC initiatives, from process overhaul to spectrum auctions to retransmission consent. “We recognize the Subcommittee’s particular interest in ensuring that broadcasters found to be out of compliance with our rules have sufficient time to unwind the arrangements, and we look forward to working with you as these rules go into effect,” Wheeler plans to tell the subcommittee, referring to the lawmakers’ recent provisions in its Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act legislation. “The new rules apply only to JSAs [joint sales agreements], not Shared Services Agreements.” The GOP memo for the hearing outlined many issues that may come up and attacked the FCC’s attempts to overhaul its own processes. Since Wheeler’s testimony before Congress in December, “indications are that self-reform is in jeopardy,” the memo said (http://1.usa.gov/1o8a4Cq). “For example, early signs of retrenchment began with the release of a statement from the Chief of the Media Bureau announcing a new Commission policy with regard to broadcast TV transactions. As described above, this action, taken at the Bureau level, changed the official policy of the Commission without a vote or deliberation of the Commissioners.” The Democratic memo highlighted other key topics, such as E-rate overhaul and Comcast’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable (http://1.usa.gov/1o8a4Cq). Democrats circulated a supplemental memo defending FCC spectrum aggregation policies planned for the incentive auction (http://1.usa.gov/1hYj8or).

The House Rules Committee will consider HR-4660, the Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for FY2015 (http://1.usa.gov/1iT4f6q), Monday at 5 p.m. in H-313 the Capitol. It was cleared from appropriations committee earlier this year. That bill would provide $36.7 million for NTIA, below the $51 million the executive branch requested. The funding would not include money for NTIA’s plan to transition the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, which Republicans have slammed, the appropriations committee has said. A Thursday Appropriations Committee report confirmed its objections to the transition. “Any such transition represents a significant public policy change and should be preceded by an open and transparent process,” the report said (http://1.usa.gov/1oyaJzC). “In order for this issue to be considered more fully by the Congress, the recommendation for NTIA does not include any funds to carry out a transition of these functions.” The report also mentions that the appropriations bill includes up to $12 million devoted to closeout activities of the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program. “The Committee directs NTIA to continue submitting quarterly reports on BTOP,” it added. “NTIA shall provide a report no later than 90 days after enactment of this Act regarding the status of the seven projects that were awarded to support deployment of 700 MHz public safety broadband networks and whether these projects are being deployed in coordination with FirstNet as established under Public Law 112-96.” There’s also $3 million for NTIA “to maintain its ability to provide technical assistance to communities across the country as they implement or expand broadband connectivity,” it said.