House Republicans are urging Democrats in control of the chamber to hold what they said is a long-overdue oversight hearing of the National Telecommunications & Information Administration.

NTIA will be overseeing billions of dollars in new broadband spending and is the Administration's voice in debates over how spectrum should be reclaimed/shared for 5G. NTIA oversees government spectrum users.

In a letter to House Energy & Commerce Committee chairman Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and Communications Subcommittee chair Mike Doyle (D-Pa.), the ranking member of the committee and subcommittee, Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and Bob Latta (R-Ohio) pointed out that there has been no oversight hearing since the 115th Congress (it is currently the 117th Congress).

Also: NTIA Seeks Comment on Handing Out Broadband Billions

"Given the new programs established across the federal government that provide hundreds of billions of dollars that can be used to support broadband access—including at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the U.S. Department of Education, and the Federal Communications Commission—it is imperative that we understand how NTIA plans to track and coordinate these programs effectively," they said.

Republicans are worried, among other things, about the waste funding duplication, potential fraud and abuse, and government subsidized overbuilding of existing commercial providers.

They also point out that there continue to be disputes among federal agencies and commercial industry over spectrum. Most notably, though they do not identify any particular disputes, the current one over C-Band spectrum users potential interference to aviation systems.

"These decisions [about spectrum use] will only become more difficult as we work to make the United States a leader in next-generation technologies," they said. "Congress tasked NTIA to establish a spectrum information technology modernization plan to improve these spectrum management activities, and we need to hear from the Biden Administration about its progress on implementation." ■

Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) will return as chairman of the powerful Energy & Commerce Committee after he was re-elected by the House Democratic Caucus Thursday (Dec. 3).

Related: House Dems Tell FCC to Back Off Controversial Items

Pallone pointed out that the committee is both the oldest standing committee (established in 1795) and with the broadest oversight, which includes broadcasting cable, satellite, the internet, privacy, cybersecurity and data security, as well as energy policy, food safety, climate issues and health insurance.

Pallone pledged to push an aggressive agenda to modernize infrastructure, protect privacy, and to "rebuild and restore critical functions of key agencies under the Committee’s jurisdiction that were dismantled over the last four years by the outgoing Trump Administration.” 

Rep Kathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) was elected ranking member of the committee earlier in the week, the first woman to hold that position.   

As Congress continues to get ready for the eventual change in Administration, the House Committee chairs have sent letters to the agencies they oversee--in this case House Energy & Commerce Committee to the FCC and Federal Trade Commission--telling them not to destroy any documents that could be relevant to any upcoming or past congressional investigations.

In the letter to FCC chairman Ajit Pai, among dozens of committee letters to agencies ranging from Agency for Global Media (USAGM) to the Social Security Administration, House E&C Democratic leaders reminded him of the agency's obligation under law to "to preserve information relevant to congressional oversight" in the new Congress.

But they also said that beyond the legal requirements, they wanted the commission also to preserve all information related to investigations undertaken in the current Congress.

They were not pointing any fingers explicitly at the FCC, but did say in the letter that the Trump Administration had "obstructed numerous congressional investigations by refusing to provide responsive information."

The FCC has caught some flak from House E&C Dems over what they said were inadequate responses for document requests in the past.

In this week's letter, the Democratic leadership made it clear that regardless of whether or not the FCC had supplied the information sought in past requests, it wanted to make sure that "any information previously requested by Congress—and any other information that is required by law to be preserved—is saved and appropriately archived in a manner that is easily retrievable."

On the other side of that coin, the legislators warned against any affirmative efforts to get rid of any documents.

"Any employee who conceals, destroys, or attempts to conceal or destroy a federal record may be subject to fine and imprisonment for up to three years," the letter warned. "We urge you to ensure that your employees and officials do not delete or destroy any official government records, including “information created, manipulated, communicated, or stored” electronically." It said that meant "taking reasonable steps to prevent the partial or full destruction, alteration, testing, deletion, shredding, incineration, wiping, relocation, migration, theft, mutation, or negligent or reckless handling that could render the information incomplete or inaccessible." Then, if any information had already been deleted or marked for deletion, the commission take all reasonable steps to recover it.

The document letter was announced the same day the committee sent another standard administration change letter to the FCC advising it not to vote on any controversial items in the FCC's lame duck period. 

Top Energy & Commerce Committee Republicans applauded the Federal Trade Commission for requiring Zoom to boost its security practices, alleging the company was "undermining the safety of and misleading its users."

The FTC announced the settlement with the company Nov. 9 Zoom must "implement a robust information security program to settle allegations that the video conferencing provider engaged in a series of deceptive and unfair practices that undermined the security of its users.

Specifically, the FTC alleged that Zoom misrepresented its level of security of its meeting platform  by calling it "end-to-end" encryption when it wasn't, claimed meetings stored on the cloud were encrypted when they were stored up to 60 days afterwards unencrypted, and undermined an Apple Safari browser safeguard that protected from some types of malware.

During the pandemic, Zoom use has increased 30-fold, from 10 million in December 2019 to 300 million in April 2020, according to the House E&C ranking member Greg Walden (R-Ore.) and Consumer Protection Subcommittee ranking member Cathy McMorris Rodgers.

They called Zoom's failure to protect user data "unacceptable." They also said they were willing to work with Democrats to come up with a "much-needed" data privacy.

Both parties have agreed something needs to be done to protect consumers' data online, but agreement has been elusive over issues like whether it should be an opt-out or opt-in regime and what falls under the definition of sensitive personal information that should get heightened protections.

House Energy & Commerce Committee leaders are accusing FCC chairman Ajit Pai's of trying to boost the flagging fortunes of President Trump in advance of the November election.

House Energy & Commerce Committee chairman Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and Communications Subcommittee chairman Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) were responding to Pai's announcement last week that he would be taking action on the President's effort to regulate social media via Section 230 of the Communications Act.

Sec. 230 provides social media and other Web sites with immunity from civil liability for their moderation of most of the third party content on their sites, though critics argue it has been stretched by the courts beyond its intended purpose.

Pai signaled he plans to follow President Trump's lead and "clarify" Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. He also said he has been assured by FCC lawyers that the FCC has the authority to do so. "I intend to move forward with a rulemaking to clarify its meaning," he said.

“Chairman Pai’s decision to start a Section 230 rulemaking is a blatant attempt to help a flailing President Trump. The timing and hurried nature of this decision makes clear it’s being done to influence social media companies’ behavior leading up to an election, and it is shocking to watch this supposedly independent regulatory agency jump at the opportunity to become a political appendage of President Trump’s campaign," Pallone and Doyle said in a statement.

“From the start, Republicans have used the Section 230 debate to threaten social media companies when they remove or flag disinformation and extremism on their platforms – all because of some baseless fantasy grievance that the internet is biased against conservative views. Their approach translates into a defense of online extremism and foreign countries’ disinformation campaigns, which is a baffling and dangerous position for lawmakers to take."

“Section 230 reform that creates a structure for healthier online ecosystems is needed and we are committed to seeing it done – but the FCC’s rush to push President Trump’s agenda weeks before Election Day should be seen for the reckless and politically-motivated stunt that it is.”

"Setting aside the now-standard overheated partisan rhetoric, what's most notable about the statement is that Chairmen Pallone and Doyle agree with Chairman Pai on the need for Section 230 reform."

The House Energy & Commerce Committee will hold a joint subcommittee hearing on the T-Mobile-Sprint merger on Feb. 13.

The Judiciary and Communications Subcommittees will be hearing from T-Mobile CEO John Legere and Sprint executive chair Marcelo Claure, plus some players to be named later.

Legere tweeted about the hearing:

[embed]https://twitter.com/JohnLegere/status/1090036546281979907[/embed]

Related: T-Mobile Says Trump Hotel Stays Were About Proximity

Pallone's office says it will be the first merger hearing before the Energy & Commerce Committee in the past eight years, which means since Democrats lost the majority.

Last week, a quintet of Democratic senators have written the Republican leadership of the Senate Commerce Committee asking them to hold a hearing on the proposed.

The Dems said they would be looking at the deal "from the perspective of what is in the best interest of consumers and hardworking people."

“We applaud bipartisan House lawmakers for holding this rare joint hearing on the consequences of the T-Mobile-Sprint merger," said the 4Competition Coalition. "In the nine months since the proposed transaction was first announced, the evidence submitted in the public record clearly demonstrates that this merger will hurt consumers, competition, and jobs.  We look forward to lawmakers’ examination of these harms during next month’s hearing.”

New FCC chairman Ajit Pai is a long and strong opponent of FCC chairman Tom Wheeler's proposal to revamp the set-top box marketplace to boost online video competition, and would be unlikely to exhume that push, but the Republican leadership of the House Energy & Commerce Committee want him to put a nail in the coffin.

In a letter to Pai Wednesday (Jan. 25), Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.), Communications Subcommittee chairman Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Energy and Commerce Committee vice chairman Joe Barton (R-Tex.), and every Republican member of the Communications Subcommittee asked him to officially close the docket on the proceeding.

"The regulatory overhang of the set-top box regulation has cast a shadow over investment and innovation in traditional video programming delivery," they said. "[w]e urge you to close the proceeding and permit the industry to innovate and serve consumers free from the restrictions of a government-chosen platform."

They said it would generally be a good idea to close all inactive dockets. and that in this particular case it should be closed as an "unnecessary regulatory threat to content creation and distribution industries" and to signal to video program distributors "that they can bring technological advances to set-top boxes and video delivery without fear that the Commission overturn them by regulation."

FCC chairman Tom Wheeler proposed requiring MVPDs to make data and program info available to third parties, first devices, then apps, to allow a better co-mingling of traditional and online video. But there was pushback from Republicans and Democrats over issues of copyright protection and the FCC's role in approving an app-based approach to accessing the MVPD content, so Wheeler could not get three votes for the item before time ran out on his tenure.

Chairman Pai’s office said it was reviewing the letter.

An omnibus update of the Telecommuncations Act, rather than piecemeal revisions, may become a high priority in the 115th Congress, according to top staff members of the Senate and House Commerce committees involved with the issue. 

At the Media Institute's monthly luncheon on Tuesday (Dec. 6), Republican and Democratic staffers agreed that substantial preparatory work has been done during the past three years, and many members would like to see a "comprehensive" update emerge, although none would predict a timetable or the eventual shape of the legislation.

"It's not so much what industry [wants], but what's good for consumers," said David Goldman, Democratic counsel for the Communications and Technology Subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Kelsey Guyselman, Republican counsel to the same committee, pointed out that incoming E&C chairman Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) and his predecessor Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) are "very optimistic" because of their ongoing reviews of issues. She said Walden has put it "at the top of his priority list."

"We've spent time on individual pieces," Guyselman said, but cautioned that a decision to proceed won't happen "until Members get a better sense of what has to be done."

In a wide-ranging discussion entitled "What's Ahead for Communications in the Next Congress?" moderated by Media Institute chairman and long-time communications attorney Richard Wiley, the bipartisan staff panel responded with varying perspectives on working with the "new" FCC next year.

Wiley asked if Congress would initiate a rare Congressional Review Act (CRA) to examine the FCC's controversial privacy proposal. Guyselman said that the House committee is "not to the point of making that decision."

The panel also grappled with Wiley's questions about ownership rules, with an inconclusive remark summarizing views about cross-ownership restrictions.  

"The media landscape has changed so much" that Congress should continue to "look at modernizing" laws, Guyselman said.

As for broadband expansion, the panelists agreed that congressional support is likely,  possibly to be included in the promised "infrastructure" plan that President-elect Trump is expected to introduce.

David Quinalty, Republican policy director for communications and telecom on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, pointed out that the committee's chairman, Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), also sits on the Senate Finance Committee, which will be involved in such infrastructure decisions. Quinalty contended that Thune's perspective would be useful in determining infrastructure support plans.

John Branscome, his Democratic counterpart on the committee staff, agreed that broadband will be part of the infrastructure discussion, particularly for rural areas.

Quinalty also dangled the possibility that FCC commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democrat whose term will end later this month, could be approved for another term; but he acknowledged that time is a critical factor as the clock ticks down on the 114th Congress.

Related: Groups Want FCC's Rosenworcel Out, Then Back In

On a more realistic topic Quinalty indicated that the Senate committee will continue its examination of net neutrality.

"We're having internal conversations about procedures," Quinalty said, adding that "just by having a White House that is less likely to veto" a congressional action doesn't mean that the committee will push any particular policy.

An audience question about the Internet of Things, drones, self-driving cars, sensors and other fast-developing technologies brought an answer from Quinalty that the Senate committee may be better equipped to handle any necessary legislation since its name and mandate includes "Commerce, Science and Technology" whereas its House counterpart is focused on Energy and Commerce.

He described these "disruptive technologies" as "blurring the lines" of Congress's traditional designated powers, which he expects will persist, even as more communications facilities come to market.

The panel ducked questions about antitrust actions, such as the looming AT&T-Time Warner merger plan. And a query about the current spectrum auction triggered a response that deferred to the FCC's established process.