Questions on telecom and tech policy were raised at the confirmation hearing of Loretta Lynch, nominee to be U.S. attorney general, Wednesday. Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., pressed Lynch about the parts of surveillance law set to expire June 1. Leahy called the next A.G. an “essential” part of his quest to overhaul surveillance law, as in his bill from the last Congress known as the USA Freedom Act. Intelligence Committee ranking member Feinstein asked Lynch to talk about the importance of the expiring provisions. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, cited the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and said he intends to reintroduce the Law Enforcement Access to Data Stored Abroad (Leads) Act. Lynch committed to working with Hatch on this “important” legislation and called electronic privacy “central” in an era of changing technology. Lynch also touted her cybersecurity goals, in an opening statement. “If confirmed, I intend to expand and enhance our capabilities in order to effectively prevent ever-evolving attacks in cyberspace, expose wrongdoers, and bring perpetrators to justice,” said Lynch, now the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York. “In my current position, I am proud to lead an office that has significant experience prosecuting complex, international cybercrime, including high-tech intrusions at key financial and public sector institutions. If I am confirmed, I will continue to use the combined skills and experience of our law enforcement partners, the Department’s Criminal and National Security Divisions, and the United States Attorney community to defeat and to hold accountable those who would imperil the safety and security of our citizens through cybercrime.”

With an FCC vote on wireless indoor 911 location accuracy rules expected Thursday, the top Republican and Democrat on the House Commerce Committee sent a letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler Wednesday saying the rules adopted must be technologically neutral. “We have concerns that the FCC is considering rules that will lock public safety into using a single, proprietary technology for providing indoor locations,” said the letter from Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., and ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J. If this is true, the agency should instead “consider solutions that can operate across multiple technologies and platforms” that are “not tethered to a single technology," they said. Wireless carriers led by CTIA have made similar arguments at the FCC. Agency officials said Wheeler already had changed his proposal on the rules to an approach closer to the road map proposed by the four national carriers, APCO and the National Emergency Number Association (see 1501270052). The rules should be “robust, enforceable and measurable,” House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., told Wheeler in a second letter Wednesday. There should be a vertical accuracy requirement, she said, and the rules also should be “technology neutral” and carriers shouldn't have to be “limited to one technology solution.”

Congress should take up Local Choice again this Congress, the Computer & Communications Industry Association told House lawmakers in its Communications Act overhaul recommendations. Comments were due to House Commerce Committee Republicans Friday but haven't been publicly released by the committee. The broadcast a la carte proposal of Local Choice, circulated in the Senate last fall and quickly abandoned (see 1409110036), “would enhance localism because the local station that foregoes must-carry and elects retransmission consent will need to compete with the other stations and provide compelling content that entices subscribers to keep the channel,” CCIA said. “Congress should fix the broken and outdated retransmission consent regime that is harming consumers with broadcast blackouts and rising fees.” CCIA said “online TV distributors lack enough subscribers to yield the market negotiating power necessary to obtain volume discounts,” amounting to a “significant barrier” in the market. Don’t let “regulatory creep” overwhelm Internet TV distribution, CCIA said. Congress could authorize the FCC to impose standstill requirements or allow multichannel video programming distributors to import distant network signals during retransmission consent disputes, CCIA said, and it could clarify FCC authority to grant interim carriage rights during broadcaster blackouts. The Alliance for Community Media, in its comments, urged several changes to telecom law to avoid “adverse” effects for PEG (public, educational and governmental access) channels. Congress should allow PEG access programming to have a statutory right to carriage on satellite TV systems and kill any distinction between operating and capital support for PEG programming, the alliance said. It wants that programming to be carried in both standard and high definition.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., urged the U.S. to strengthen its surveillance powers. “The U.S. government should implore American technology companies to cooperate with authorities so that we can better track terrorist activity and monitor terrorist communications as we face the increasing challenge of homegrown terrorists radicalized by little more than what they see on the Internet,” Rubio said in a Fox News column Tuesday. “This year, a new Republican majority in both houses of Congress will have to extend current authorities under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and I urge my colleagues to consider a permanent extension of the counterterrorism tools our intelligence community relies on to keep the American people safe.” Rubio’s urging follows the last Congress’s attempt to overhaul U.S. surveillance programs, with many privacy advocates critical of the government’s bulk collection of metadata. Rubio is debating a run for the White House in 2016.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., hopes to advance soon legislation on call completion problems. “I would hope it would be in the next month,” Klobuchar told us at the Capitol Tuesday. She said she finds the issue and need for legislation “really important” and wants to advance a bill. “Rural call completion problems aren’t just a headache for consumers -- they’re also a problem for small businesses in Minnesota and across the country that need reliable phone service,” Klobuchar said in a statement Monday, praising the FCC call completion settlement with Verizon (see 1501260053). “This settlement sends a loud and clear message to phone carriers that failing to investigate rural call completion problems will come at a cost.” NTCA, which has frequently lobbied on the issue, welcomed the news. Klobuchar “understands the importance of seamless universal connectivity for rural communities and we are grateful for her tireless commitment on these issues,” NTCA Senior Vice President-Policy Michael Romano told us.

Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., reintroduced one of two primary promised FCC process overhaul bills Monday -- S-253, which the longer title said is a “bill to amend the Communications Act of 1943 [sic] to consolidate the reporting obligations of the Federal Communications Commission in order to improve congressional oversight and reduce reporting burdens.” It has no co-sponsors listed and was referred to the Commerce Committee, where Heller is a member. A Republican Senate staffer confirmed to us that this is the FCC Consolidated Reporting Act and emphasized Heller's desire to strike a deal with Democrats to advance the bill. The staffer framed it as a simple bill about good governance and said it could have real traction in this Congress. The House approved a companion version of the bill last Congress, but it never advanced in the Senate. Heller didn't solicit co-sponsors, nor is the reporting bill intended to affect FCC authorities, the staffer said. Heller emphasized that same point to then-Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., at a markup session of different legislation last fall, referring to potential concern over how the bill affected Telecom Act Section 706. Heller told us in December he planned to consult with House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., early in the year about their plan to move forward with FCC overhaul legislation (see 1412240031). He and Walden have backed the FCC Consolidated Reporting Act and the FCC Process Reform Act. Walden spokespeople had no immediate comment about possible forthcoming House companion legislation. A spokeswoman for Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., told us in December that FCC reporting and process overhaul legislation would be given “due consideration” this year, citing bipartisan backing in the past for those bills and saying efficient FCC operations would be a committee priority. Heller hasn't issued any news release about S-253, nor has the bill text been released or posted online.

NetCompetition wants the FCC to release its draft net neutrality order Feb. 5, weeks ahead of the Feb. 26 agency vote where it’s expected to be made public. Scott Cleland, chairman of the ISP industry-funded group, backed three GOP lawmakers who pressed the agency last week to make the order public early (see 1501230061). “The FCC’s congressional overseers are right and wise to ask the FCC to make their proposed Open Internet Order available to the public three weeks prior to their scheduled February 26th vote,” Cleland said in a Friday statement.

The White House is “pleased” and “particularly encouraged” to see Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., leading the charge on municipal broadband legislation, Senior Adviser for Technology and Economic Policy David Edelman said in a blog post Monday. That Community Broadband Act legislation (S-240) would let Congress pre-empt state laws restricting municipal broadband networks, as President Barack Obama has asked the FCC to do. The Commerce Department has a “wealth” of new resources for those seeking information about the administration’s broadband efforts, Edelman said. The Broadband Opportunity Council will meet next month for the first time, “bringing together over a dozen agencies in the federal government with a single purpose: to slash unnecessary barriers that could keep companies from investing, entering new markets, or building fast broadband infrastructure,” he said. The Agriculture Department also has “officially opened its Community Connect program for the next round of loans, and eligible providers can begin applying today,” he added. Commerce’s BroadbandUSA initiative will hold a webinar Wednesday at 2 p.m. and a regional workshop Feb. 4 in Jackson, Mississippi, he said. Republicans control both chambers on Capitol Hill and have not typically favored pre-empting state laws on this front in the last year.

More than 60 companies and organizations signed a letter to Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, ranking member Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and ranking member John Conyers, D-Mich., Thursday, urging them to support an update to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The ECPA Amendments Act would “provide stronger protection to sensitive personal and proprietary communications stored in ‘the cloud,'” said the letter. Signers included Amazon, Google, the Software & Information Industry Association, TechFreedom, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Yahoo. The legislation is expected to be introduced in the next few weeks and would require the government to obtain a warrant before requiring a service provider to “disclose the content of emails, texts or other private material stored by the service provider,” said the letter. It said the technology entities believe the requirement of a warrant grants “greater privacy protections” to the American public and creates a “more level playing field for technology.” The ECPA update didn't pass last Congress because authorities want to be able to access customer documents and communications without having to first get a warrant, said the letter. The organizations warned that by failing to pass the legislation again, Congress is sending a message that “privacy protections are lacking in law enforcement access to user information and that constitutional values are imperiled in a digital world.” ECPA update backers have called the initiative a multiyear effort (see 1407140033).

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Rep. Todd Young, R-Ind., reintroduced the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act last week. S-226/HR-427 would force any regulation expected to have an annual economic impact of at least a $100 million to receive a vote before Congress prior to enactment. “If the Obama Administration wants to impose regulations that effectively operate as laws on U.S. citizens, it is important that those citizens are made aware of how the laws come to be,” Paul said in a statement. The bill has 31 co-sponsors in the Senate, all Republicans. The House bill’s 133 co-sponsors are also all Republicans. Paul posted the bill text.