House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., outlined the committee’s legislative agenda for the 114th Congress at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast Wednesday, a news release said. The committee plans copyright hearings in the coming months to address the remaining IP issues that weren’t covered in the 113th Congress, he said. The committee then will work with all copyright stakeholders, including the tech and content industries, to “find consensus on the areas of the Copyright Act that need improvement,” Goodlatte said. The remote online sales tax issue needs to be “solved,” he said: “We should create a level playing field so that online, bricks and mortar, and bricks and clicks businesses can compete under fair rules.” He emphasized the importance of permanently banning Internet access taxes, an issue on which Goodlatte, Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and other Judiciary Committee members already have introduced legislation (see 1501090042). Goodlatte said he expects to work with the Senate to pass, “as quickly as possible,” the Innovation Act (HR-3309), a bill he said would curb “abusive” patent litigation.

The House passed the Regulatory Accountability Act (HR-185) along party lines Tuesday, with 242 Republicans and eight Democrats voting for it, and 175 Democrats against it, despite a White House veto threat earlier this week. The bill “would impose unprecedented and unnecessary procedural requirements on agencies that would prevent them from efficiently performing their statutory responsibilities,” the Office of Management and Budget said. “It would also create needless regulatory and legal uncertainty and further impede the implementation protections for the American public. This bill would make the regulatory process more expensive, less flexible, and more burdensome -- dramatically increasing the cost of regulation for the American taxpayer and working class families.” The bill’s backers defended it. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., blasted the “real” problematic effects of excessive government regulation. “This legislation gives Americans a better check against their own government by requiring advance notice of proposed major regulations to increase public input,” co-sponsor Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., said in a statement. “It also requires agencies to find lower-cost alternative rules when possible, and to clearly demonstrate the additional benefits for any additional cost to the taxpayer.”

A Capitol Hill telecom rewrite could and should include many priorities that could gain bipartisan support, said panelists at a Wednesday Hill event hosted by NetCompetition, whose members include major ISPs and associations like CTIA, NCTA and USTelecom. “We’re all competing in this same space,” Minority Media and Telecommunications Council Vice President Nicol Turner-Lee said, adding that the old Communications Act titles don’t necessarily make sense anymore. “When you have an obsolete law, it causes problems,” NetCompetition Chairman Scott Cleland said. He said he sees several problems with current telecom law, citing an anti-innovation bias, uncertain and eroding FCC regulatory authority and a decay of the public switched telephone network (PSTN), with the “fiscal insanity” of a fifth of consumers paying to back the network. Spectrum management -- or lack thereof -- is in a “scandalous” state, Cleland said. “Who’s hoarding most of it? It’s the federal government,” he said, lamenting lack of “coherent policy” and “no formal spectrum budget process.” Internet Innovation Alliance honorary co-chair Rick Boucher, a former Democratic chairman of the House Communications Subcommittee, repeated his backing for a rewrite, citing the unsustainable PSTN and a need to eliminate barriers. “Let’s find a creative way to get [spectrum] on the auction block a lot faster,” Boucher said, expressing pleasant shock at the AWS-3 spectrum auction having surpassed $40 billion in bids. Several panelists, including ex-FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell and Free State Foundation President Randolph May, cited the trouble with the Communications Act silos, regulating different types of industries that offer similar services with different rules.

Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Bill Nelson, D-Fla., is planning to introduce the Data Security and Breach Notification Act, said a committee news release Tuesday. The bill’s draft version parallels many of the data breach proposals set out by President Barack Obama in his speech at the FTC Monday (see 1501120043), including a 30-day consumer notification requirement for companies hit by such a breach, the release said. "How many more consumers will be affected before something is done?” Nelson asked in the release. “Now is the time Congress must act,” he said. “The bill would authorize both the FTC and state attorneys general to enforce the data security and breach notification provisions of the Act,” the release said. The bill is in the final stages of drafting, it said.

CEA hails introduction of revived Senate legislation to reform immigration for the high-skilled, President Gary Shapiro said in a statement Tuesday. The Immigration Innovation (I-Squared) Act of 2015, introduced Tuesday by Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah; Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.; Marco Rubio, R-Fla.; Chris Coons, D-Del.; Jeff Flake, R-Ariz.; and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., “is a long overdue step toward addressing our nation’s shortage of high-skilled workers,” Shapiro said. “Not only does it increase the number of H-1B Visas, it also allows for an increase depending on the demands of the marketplace. The legislation also makes important upgrades to the student visa program and allows for the recapture of unused green cards.” Immigrants account for a quarter of technology startups and jobs created in the U.S., Shapiro said. “It is imperative that we encourage the best and brightest from around the world to stay here, instead of pushing them to the back of the line and incentivizing them to innovate and create jobs abroad.” There’s a real shot in the new Congress at enacting immigration reform for the high-skilled because President Barack Obama and Republicans and Democrats “agree on the parameters," Shapiro told us the morning after the Republicans’ sweep in the midterm elections (see [Ref:1411050022). "Everyone agrees we need highly skilled immigration reform," when 70 percent of those earning post-graduate engineering and math degrees are from foreign countries, "and we’re kicking them out," he said then. "It’s not the wisest policy."

The FCC shouldn't reclassify small- and medium-sized broadband providers under Communications Act Title II, but if it decides to adopt that approach, it should forbear from applying all common-carrier rules to smaller ISPs, the American Cable Association said in comments posted Tuesday in docket 14-28. “Smaller ISPs do not have the incentive or ability to engage in unreasonable or discriminatory practices, much less anticompetitive acts, which harm consumers and edge providers,” ACA said. The FCC “does not have the legal authority” to reclassify, ACA said, because it can't provide a “reasoned basis for the change.” NCTA and Comcast have made the same argument, and observers expect it to be a key part of any court appeal of Title II net neutrality rules (see [Ref:1412310041]). “The courts have made clear that the Commission may not impose Title II regulation based simply on its notions of good policy,” ACA also argued. An entity is a common carrier under the Communications Act, in part, if it "holds itself out to serve indifferently all potential users,” ACA said. ISPs are not “'holding themselves out’ as common carrier providers of pure transmission service,” ACA said. Under a Title II approach, “immediate and blanket forbearance would mitigate many of the potential and significant harms” of reclassification, ACA said. Without Title II regulations, “smaller ISPs have delivered innovative, high-performance broadband Internet access service at competitive rates to consumers,” ACA said. It said Title II regulations “are demonstrably, if not inherently, unnecessary to protect competition, consumers, or the public interest.” ACA, NCTA and the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association also asked the commission in a letter to Chairman Tom Wheeler on Friday to hold an en banc hearing “to examine the significant economic impact” of net neutrality rules on small broadband providers. The Regulatory Flexibility Act requires the agency as part of rulemaking to examine the regulatory burdens on small businesses of new rules, as well as alternatives available for small businesses to comply, the groups wrote. The FCC is reviewing the letter, an agency spokeswoman said.

The Congressional Caucus on the Internet of Things (IoT) was launched by House Judiciary IP Subcommittee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and House Judiciary Committee member Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., a joint news release said Tuesday. Issa and DelBene will be caucus co-chairs, it said. The caucus’ primary function will be to educate lawmakers on IoT issues, including examining the FTC’s forthcoming report on IoT, the release said. “It’s critical that lawmakers remain educated about the fast paced evolution of the Internet of Things, and have informed policy discussions about the government’s role in access and use of these devices,” Issa said in the release. “Policymakers will need to be engaged and educated on how we can best protect consumers while also enabling these new technologies to thrive,” DelBene said.

House Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., enhanced his subpoena powers Tuesday at his committee’s organizational meeting, causing an uproar from Democrats who opposed the rule change. Upton wants “efficient subpoena authority,” in line with other top investigatory committees, he said, citing a change to rule 16. “The Chair shall notify the ranking minority member prior to issuing any subpoena under such authority,” the new rule text said. “To the extent practicable, the Chair shall consult with the ranking minority member at least 72 hours in advance of a subpoena being issued under such authority. The chairman shall report to the members of the Committee on the issuance of a subpoena as soon as practicable but in no event later than one week after issuance of such subpoena.” Ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., worried about the change’s “huge potential for the abuse of power,” saying it set a “terrible precedent” for Commerce. Upton insisted he would work with Democrats and said a subpoena is the last resort. Upton said he already "substantially" modified the rule to comply with concerns from Pallone, who still opposed the rule. Lawmakers argued about how Commerce issued no subpoenas last Congress, with Democrats questioning why a change was necessary if there was no trouble before. “The rule change supports congressional oversight,” countered Commerce Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Tim Murphy, R-Pa., saying it’s necessary in determining which federal programs work and which ones don’t. He slammed “a very slow walk from some agencies.” Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., derided the change as a “cheap power grab.” Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., said she would “rather have us be partners” and said the change seemed contrary to Upton’s pledge for an open, fair process in his opening statement. The rules change was approved in a divided vote.

Americans for Tax Reform sent a letter to lawmakers Thursday asking them to reaffirm their support for the Email Privacy Act (HR-1852). The bill “outlines a simple procedure to ensure that email and cloud documents receive the same protections as paper documents stored in a local file cabinet,” ATR said. “Giving email and cloud documents the same protection as paper documents stored in a local file cabinet, does not impede law enforcement,” it said. The bill had 272 House co-sponsors in the 113th Congress. The bill’s Senate equivalent (S-607) had six Senate co-sponsors.

Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., introduced a bill Friday targeting the wireless portion of the Lifeline program, joining Sen. David Vitter, R-La. (see [Ref:1501080034). HR-266 would “prohibit universal service support of commercial mobile service and commercial mobile data service through the Lifeline program,” its longer title said. The House bill has no co-sponsors and has been referred to the Commerce Committee. Scott and Vitter have attacked the wireless portion of the Lifeline program before through legislation.