House Commerce Committee Republicans' plans for stronger oversight of federal disbursal of $65 billion in connectivity money from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act are “going to be extremely important” going forward and will be a “primary objective” for the party if it wins a majority in the chamber in the November elections, Communications Subcommittee member Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Ga., said during a Thursday Punchbowl News event (see 2209080034). “Making certain that the moneys that are being spent” correctly and agencies are effectively coordinating their connectivity programs will be “vitally important” during the next Congress. “One of the reasons why I didn’t support” IIJA “is because I didn’t think there” were “enough safeguards to make sure that we weren’t going to have each different agency … out there doing their own thing,” he said: “It’s extremely important for Congress to step up to the plate and to do our part in the way of oversight” given his concern that “we in the legislative branch have deferred too much authority to the executive branch over a period of time,” particularly “in the way of oversight.” Carter predicted Republicans would gain 25-30 seats in the House in November, reflecting “the ebb and flow, if you will, of the election season” rather than a real momentum shift in the Democrats’ favor given earlier expectations of a larger electoral win.

Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., refiled her Go Pack Go Act Tuesday in a bid to give residents in 13 state counties assigned to a Michigan or Minnesota media market access to Green Bay Packers game broadcasts. The measure would require cable, satellite and other video providers to give their Wisconsin subscribers access to programming from broadcast TV stations in a Wisconsin media market (see 1910230053).

The Senate Judiciary Committee shouldn’t advance the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, Public Knowledge said Monday, joining an alliance of advocates and tech groups in an opposition letter to the committee. The Center for Democracy & Technology, Common Cause, the Computer & Communications Industry Association, Consumer Reports, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Free Press Action, the R Street Institute and Re:Create signed. The Senate Judiciary Committee plans to mark up the bill Thursday (see 2208020063). The bill will “cement and stimulate consolidation in the industry and create new barriers to entry for new and innovative models of truly independent, local journalism,” they wrote. “There are other policy solutions to the crisis in local journalism, and we strongly urge you to reconsider” the JCPA. The News/Media Alliance in a white paper released Monday recommended JCPA passage. The association’s report detailed allegations that Google is abusing its dominant position over news publishers. “Google extracts revenue from valuable news content by deliberately and systematically delivering personalized information to users to keep them within their walled gardens,” said General Counsel Danielle Coffey. “This fuels their engine of scraping reader data to sell their information and target them with ads. There remains little bargaining power and, as a result, news publishers are forced to consent to nearly unlimited uses of their content in exchange for scraps.”

California shouldn’t be dictating privacy rules for the rest of the country, said House Commerce Committee ranking member Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., Friday in response to comments from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on privacy negotiations (see 2209010066). Rodgers called California the “home of Big Tech and the societal ills it has brought.” She noted her bipartisan, bicameral bill, American Data Privacy and Protection Act, gained more than 80% support in a recent poll, and the bill passed the House Commerce Committee 53-2. “Advocacy groups agree” the bill provides the “most robust privacy protections to date in the U.S., even stronger than California,” she said. Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Vice President Daniel Castro said: “No single state should stand in the way of privacy protections for all Americans or try to set the standard for the rest of the country.” The bill is “far from perfect,” but it’s an “important compromise that would empower all Americans with basic consumer privacy rights while balancing consumer protection and innovation,” he said.

Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., and Consumer Protection Subcommittee ranking member Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., urged the FCC Thursday to “continue to proceed with an evidence-based rulemaking” as it evaluates future use of the 12 GHz band. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel told lawmakers last month the commission is going through “a complex engineering process that involves analyzing competing technical analyses” of the band (see 2208100063). “We appreciate your willingness to prioritize impartial technical and engineering analysis to answer the underlying question of whether it is possible to increase terrestrial use of this band while avoiding harmful interference to incumbent operations,” Blackburn and Lujan said in a letter to Rosenworcel. The 12 GHz “proceeding continues in the tradition of the FCC taking on complex engineering and policy challenges with objective evidence-based analysis. This will serve to reinforce the Commission as the expert agency for evaluating competing interference claims when considering shared and flexible use of spectrum.”

The National Association of State 911 Administrators “has strong and urgent concerns” about language in the House-passed Spectrum Innovation Act (HR-7624) and “potential amendments” to the unaltered Senate companion S-4117 that “will unnecessarily detract from and delay” next-generation 911 tech upgrades, the group said in an open letter to senators posted Tuesday. The House passed HR-7624 in July with language allocating up to $10 billion in proceeds from a proposed auction of spectrum on the 3.1-3.45 GHz band for NG-911 implementation (see 2207280052). NASNA “supported” initial language funding NG-911 via HR-7624 that the House Communications Subcommittee advanced in June (see 2206140077) “and we still support the premise of federal assistance” for NG-911, said Executive Director Harriet Rennie-Brown in the letter. “However, we believe now is the time to voice our strong and urgent concern about” other NG-911 language in the measure that mirrors the group’s past qualms with language in the Leading Infrastructure for Tomorrow’s America Act (HR-1848), including interoperability requirements and language on “commonly accepted standards” (see 2104080003). NASNA is “fully aware that there have been matters raised by other public safety groups and we are concerned that these other interests will unnecessarily detract from and delay NG911 implementation,” Rennie-Brown said: The existing proposed language supports the National Emergency Number Association’s i3 standard “that is already in use and is saving lives today. While we support innovation and competition, we do not support any amended language that would give preference to an alternative standard. Every state, regional, and local agency that is implementing NG911 is based on the NENA i3 standard.” The group opposes a proposed Nationwide Next Generation 911 Cybersecurity Center as “redundant and unnecessary” and is concerned by HR-7624’s language to end the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s involvement in NG-911 implementation, she said. “Leaving the joint implementation and coordination office between NHTSA and NTIA in place for the present time is not only feasible, but HR 7624 language should allow for an objective evaluation of the proper federal ‘home’ for the resources to assist the states with 911 and coordinate federal 911 activities.” NASNA believes “the overly prescriptive conditions written into” HR-7624 “for the states’ NG911 plan are redundant, unnecessary, and create burdensome requirements for the states' 911 systems,” Rennie-Brown said: “The NG911 plan requirements are best suited to the grant rulemaking process, not congressional mandates.”

House Republicans introduced legislation Wednesday targeting the Biden administration’s alleged influence over social media platforms’ content moderation practices. House Commerce Committee ranking member Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash.; House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jim Jordan, R-Ohio; and House Oversight Committee ranking member James Comer, R-Ky., introduced the Protecting Speech from Government Interference Act HR-8752. The bill bans federal officials from using “official authority, influence, or resources -- including contracting, grantmaking, rulemaking, licensing, permitting, investigatory, or enforcement actions -- to promote the censorship of lawful speech or advocate that a third party or private entity censor speech,” they said. It carries penalties mirroring those levied against officials who engage in political activity in their official capacities, including pay reductions, debarment and civil penalties, they said.

The FTC appears to be “flouting federal law” by relying on “unpaid and unaccountable consultants and so-called 'experts' to perform core functions at the agency,” House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, wrote in a letter to Chair Lina Khan on Thursday. He cited an inspector general report from earlier this month about the agency’s use of unpaid consultants and experts. The Aug. 1 report included a performance audit to “determine whether the FTC’s program used to hire and oversee unpaid consultants and experts is managed in accordance with federal and agency requirements.” The audit concluded that “without a deliberate control structure and stronger mitigation posture, the agency is vulnerable to a variety of risks.” The audit said the agency’s “unpaid consultant and expert program lacks a comprehensive system of controls” and the agency “identifies, recruits, and selects unpaid consultants and experts without uniformity and transparency across all agency stakeholders.” Jordan accused the FTC of disregarding the law and exposing the agency to conflicts of interest risks. The “lack of guardrails will make it easier for the Biden FTC to continue promoting a radical, far-left orthodoxy,” he said. The FTC confirmed receiving the letter but declined comment.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., should hold a floor vote on the House Commerce Committee’s bipartisan privacy legislation, some 50 public interest groups wrote the speaker Thursday. The group includes Public Knowledge, Access Now, Center for Democracy & Technology, Center for Digital Democracy, Communications Workers of America, Open MIC, Fairplay and the Electronic Privacy Information Center. The letter notes the American Data Privacy and Protection Act has “limited preemption” of state privacy laws that cover the same issues as the ADPPA: It doesn’t “preempt state civil rights laws, consumer protection laws of general applicability, or laws related to student or employee privacy, health privacy, financial privacy, social security numbers, facial recognition, electronic surveillance, encryption, or several other categories.”

A whistleblower’s claims against Twitter, if substantiated, “demonstrate a pattern of willful disregard for the personal data of Twitter users and the integrity of the platform,” House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and House Cybersecurity Subcommittee Chair Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., wrote in a letter Thursday to Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal (see 2208230068). The company denied the allegations when they first surfaced. The letter cites Russian disinformation campaigns during election cycles and Twitter’s “unique role” in distributing information. They requested responses to a series of questions regarding the platform’s approach to security deficiencies.