Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., introduced the Community Broadband Act Thursday. A Booker news release said Sens. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., are backing the bill. The legislation would forbid any state statute or regulation “from barring any public provider from providing advanced telecommunications capability or any comparable service to public or private entities and it would provide antidiscrimination safeguards in the event that any public provider regulates competing private providers,” in language provided by Booker's spokeswoman. “This Act aims to promote and protect local communities, enabling them to enhance economic development, improve access to education and health care services, and stabilize prices, allowing them to more successfully compete in local markets.” Markey issued a statement praising the bill while also urging the FCC to act. Booker mentioned his support for municipal broadband during a Wednesday Senate Commerce Committee hearing on net neutrality. He said a GOP draft bill would limit Telecom Act Section 706. Many suspect the FCC would need 706 authority to pre-empt state laws restricting municipal broadband. “This legislation takes the ability to fight Goliath out,” Booker said of the GOP net neutrality draft bill. He continually framed major industry ISPs as “Goliaths” and praised municipalities that move to provide their own Internet. Republicans, in control of both chambers on Capitol Hill, are not seen to favor municipal broadband. The House passed legislation last Congress that would prevent FCC pre-emption of state laws on this front, but that provision never advanced through the Senate. The Coalition for Local Internet Choice praised Booker for “his affirmation of local Internet choice and his support for the authority of local governments to work on next generation broadband networks with their private partners and local communities.” Free Press, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and Public Knowledge also back the bill. Booker posted the seven-page bill online. It includes a section encouraging public-private partnerships. If any municipal project “fails due to bankruptcy or is terminated by a public provider, no Federal funds may be provided to the public provider specifically to assist the public provider in reviving or renewing that project,” with some exemptions for major disasters, the text said.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., insisted his draft net neutrality bill’s language wasn't intended to include any loopholes to allow for paid prioritization, despite protests from committee Democrats. Democrats in both chambers worry about the draft bill’s provision on specialized services, but Thune said during the final hour of his Commerce Committee hearing (see 1501210049) Wednesday evening that the language is drawn from FCC 2010 rules, White House statements and the proposal last year from former House Commerce Committee ranking member Henry Waxman, D-Calif. “I put out a draft, you’re all shooting at it, that’s fine,” Thune said. Several other Democrats, including Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Maria Cantwell of Washington and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, attacked the draft. Cantwell dismissed the specialized services exemption as “big enough to drive a truck through.” The Pacific Northwest is “not going to be quiet about this issue,” Cantwell said, tying it to commerce and worrying about the chilling effects. Booker defended Communications Act Title II reclassification by the FCC as the one path forward. The draft ”eviscerates a lot of the key elements that are put in place” in Section 202 of Title II, Booker said, grilling Multicultural, Media, Telecom & Internet Council Vice President Nicol Turner-Lee for her objections to Title II. The idea that legislation will lead to flexibility seems “counterintuitive” and “counterfactual,” Blumenthal said, concerned the draft would hurt FCC authority to address disparities and to stop anticompetitive behavior. Public Knowledge President Gene Kimmelman told Communications Subcommittee ranking member Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, that the draft could be modified to the point of acceptability -- it’s “a matter of getting past all the titles and the characterizations and getting at the functions,” Kimmelman said. “This is your one shot at the apple. I don’t see Congress coming back to this.” Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., issued a statement Thursday blasting “utility-style regulations” and saying he plans to work with Thune and their House counterparts “to put forward a proposal that ensures that consumers continue to have access to high-speed Internet services and innovation unimpeded by disproportionate government intervention.” The hearing's "proceedings yielded optimism that there are members on both sides of the aisle who see and support a role for Congress to set a workable long term policy to protect an open Internet," Thune said in a statement Thursday.

House Judiciary IP Subcommittee ranking member Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., will retain that position in the 114th Congress, said a Nadler news release Wednesday. Nadler became ranking member in the 113th Congress. “I look forward to working ... on issues affecting patents and trademarks, information technology, and the internet,” he said. “I also expect to continue to play a major role in the Judiciary Committee’s copyright review,” Nadler said. “Our intellectual property laws are at the core of how we consume media, from watching TV and listening to music to enjoying a movie or sharing photos,” he said. “We will seek to strike the right balance between how artists, authors, musicians, photographers and other content creators are compensated for their work with the desire of technology companies to provide new and innovative ways for consumers to access this content.” Nadler’s proposed MusicBus legislation is expected to be introduced this year (see 1412050057 and 1410090097).

Some backers of what they consider compromise net neutrality legislation found no solace in separate House and Senate net neutrality hearings Wednesday (see 1501210049). “Unfortunately, it looks to me like the Democrats have no intention of agreeing to any bill that is not excessively regulatory and intrusive,” said Free State Foundation President Randolph May, saying he would be “concerned” if GOP lawmakers “alter their draft in ways that further restrict the ability of Internet providers to innovate and experiment with new business models, especially when there is no evidence of present consumer harm or market failure.” TechFreedom President Berin Szoka said it's “disappointing that Democrats seem unwilling even to discuss a legislative solution that could finally resolve the decade-long net neutrality debate” and called for regular order. “Only Congress can provide clarity, transparency and permanence," he said. "Whatever the FCC cooks up behind closed doors will only get mired in court when it finally sees the light of day -- and we’ll wind up right back where we started, with Congress having to decide what to do. Why wait until 2017?” But the current draft bill “does more harm than good,” said New America Foundation’s Joshua Stager and Sarah Morris, in an op-ed for The Hill. “Congress would better serve consumers and small businesses by allowing the FCC to move forward with light-touch net neutrality protections instructed by the robust regulatory record before it.” They said any fears over reclassification are “misplaced.”

Google, at $16.83 million, spent more on its federal lobbying efforts than any other tech or communications company in 2014, Consumer Watchdog said in a news release Wednesday. Google’s 2014 lobbying spending was a company record, it said. Amazon ($4.74 million), Apple ($4.11 million), Comcast ($16.8 million) and Facebook ($9.34 million) each set company lobbying expenditure records in 2014, said CW. “It’s important to understand just how much money these companies are throwing around in Washington,” said John Simpson, Consumer Watchdog Privacy Project director, in the release. “Policymaking is now all about big bucks, not big ideas.” AT&T’s $14.56 million in 2014 was a 9 percent decrease from the previous year, said the release. Verizon’s $11.22 million in 2014 was a 17 percent decrease from 2013. Sprint’s lobbying spending jumped by 9 percent in 2014, to $2.99 million. Cisco’s lobbying total of $2.35 million in 2014 was a 25 percent decrease from 2013. IBM 2014 spending dipped by 30 percent to $4.95 million compared with 2013. Intel spent $3.8 million in 2014, a 13 percent decrease from the previous year. Oracle’s $5.83 million in 2014 was 3 percent less than 2013. Yahoo’s spending increased by 6 percent in 2014 to $2.94 million.

CEA stopped short of declaring its intention to join United for Patent Reform, the coalition started last week by the National Retail Federation to seek legislation to reduce abusive patent litigation (see 1501150035). United for Patent Reform “is a strong and broad coalition that plays a critical role, and we are considering how we can be most helpful," said Michael Petricone, CEA senior vice president-government affairs, in an emailed statement Friday. Several tech and telecom companies belong to the coalition -- Adobe, Amazon, Cisco, Dell, Facebook, Google, Oracle and Verizon -- as do several trade associations, but no trade groups from the tech industry. CEA has identified patent reform as one of its top legislative priorities in the new Congress (see 1411050022).

House Commerce Committee member John Shimkus, R-Ill., will reintroduce the Domain Openness Through Continued Oversight Matters (DOTCOM) Act (HR-4342) in the next two to three weeks (see 1501080054 and 1412100054), his spokesman said Tuesday. The bill would require a GAO study of NTIA’s proposed Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition for up to one year. Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., introduced HR-355 last week to prohibit the transition outright (see 1501150030).

Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., will chair the Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee, said a Tuesday news release from Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss. The subcommittee oversees the budgets for the FCC and FTC and may get involved in net neutrality fights (see 1501090038). In 2011, Boozman touted his vote to nullify the agency’s 2010 net neutrality rules. Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., will be the subcommittee’s ranking member.

Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, became ranking member of the Communications Subcommittee, Commerce Committee ranking member Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said Tuesday at a committee organizational meeting. Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., already was known to be chairman of the subcommittee. Schatz was one of the lower-ranking members of the subcommittee and not widely expected to lead the Democrats, though many more-senior Democrats had begun distancing themselves (see 1412120057). “In my new role, one of my top priorities will be increasing access to broadband across the country and throughout Hawai'i,” Schatz said in a statement. “Open and fast internet access is critical for residents and businesses across the islands and will create high quality jobs and help Hawai'i diversify its economy.” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., will be ranking member of the Consumer Protection and Data Security Subcommittee, a subcommittee enhanced with its data security jurisdiction this Congress. Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., is chairman of that subcommittee. Nelson, in his opening statement for the organizational meeting, said “how to maintain a free and open Internet” and “addressing cybersecurity and protecting networks and the data stored on them from both domestic and foreign threats” are among his priorities.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold its organizational meeting Thursday at 10 a.m. in 226 Dirksen, the committee announced. It will focus on committee rules, organization and the subcommittees, which have included subcommittees on privacy as well as on antitrust issues. Judiciary also will consider a committee authorizing resolution. The House Judiciary Committee will hold its organizational meeting Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. in 2141 Rayburn, a committee news release said Friday. The meeting will focus on the committee’s rules, organization and its subcommittees, which include the IP and antitrust subcommittees. All copyright matters will be heard at the full committee level, not at the IP subcommittee, Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., announced in December (see 1412050057).