Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., became part of Senate GOP leadership Tuesday. Fischer is a member of the Commerce Committee in this Congress and has been part of the Communications Subcommittee, which has not yet released members for the new Congress. She has outlined an ambitious tech and telecom agenda. Former Hill staffers have told us it’s helpful in moving pieces of legislation when the backers belong to the leadership (see 1411180038). Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., appointed Fischer one of four counsels to the majority leader of the 114th Congress, which officially began Tuesday. Another counsel is Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, a member of the Judiciary Committee. “This position will give me the unique opportunity to present the concerns of Nebraskans directly to Republican Leadership at our weekly meetings and add a new perspective to our conference,” Fischer said in a statement.

Incoming Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, will chair the House Homeland Security Committee’s Cybersecurity Subcommittee in the 114th Congress, said Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas. Rep. Patrick Meehan, R-Pa., led the subcommittee during the 113th Congress. Ratcliffe, a former U.S. attorney, defeated incumbent Rep. Ralph Hall in a Republican primary in May.

House Commerce Committee Vice Chairman Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., hammered the FCC again Monday for its interest in creating net neutrality rules. “Of course net neutrality rules would be damaging,” Blackburn said during a Fox Business news program interview, which she posted. Blackburn lamented Communications Act Title II reclassification of broadband and said it would impose taxes “on your broadband providers, an estimate of $15 billion in new taxes that would come in through a Title II regulation,” a position that has been contested (see 1412010035). “It is called companies trying to find a way to transact business,” she said of Comcast's hammering out a peering deal with Netflix. “Let’s leave it to the private sector.” She said innovators shouldn't need to seek FCC permission before proceeding with innovation, citing the ongoing CES show in Las Vegas and what innovators there would think. “What we don’t want to see is the FCC usurping that authority so they are assigning priority and value to content,” Blackburn said. “The FCC needs to get out of the way and let innovation take place.” Congressional Democrats have largely backed net neutrality rules, some pushing for Title II reclassification.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and ranking member Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, pressed the Obama administration on its use of cell-site simulators, which can collect cellphone users’ information. They sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson Dec. 23, which they released Wednesday. Grassley, who will become chairman of Judiciary and Leahy ranking member in the new Congress, sought answers to several questions by Jan. 30. In the months since summer, “our staff members have participated in two briefings with FBI officials, and at the most recent session they learned that the FBI recently changed its policy with respect to the type of legal process that it typically seeks before employing this type of technology,” they wrote in the letter. “According to this new policy, the FBI now obtains a search warrant before deploying a cell-site simulator, although the policy contains a number of potentially broad exceptions and we continue to have questions about how it is being implemented in practice. Furthermore, it remains unclear how other agencies within the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security make use of cell-site simulators and what policies are in place to govern their use of that technology.”

Recent mobile cramming settlements with AT&T and T-Mobile “send a strong message to wireless carriers and crammers that this insidious practice will not be tolerated,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said in a news release Tuesday. “Unauthorized and unscrupulous third-party charges -- hidden in bills through vague and deceptive language -- have robbed consumers and they deserve their money back.” He held a news conference in Hartford Monday with FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel to let people know how to collect money from the settlement and how to alert the government of future problems. “Cramming is modern-day pickpocketing,” Rosenworcel said. “These bogus charges on consumer bills are unfair -- and they can add up fast. That's why these settlements are so important.” To allow consumers to seek compensation, AT&T set up a website, as did T-Mobile.

House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., touted the House’s criticism of the FCC when reviewing the year’s accomplishments. The House Commerce Committee “conducted thorough oversight of federal agencies under our jurisdiction,” Walden said in a column posted on his website Friday. “When the [FCC] proposed a ‘study’ that sought to poke their noses into America’s newsrooms, the Communications and Technology panel that I chair objected strongly, leading to the agency dropping this threat to the First Amendment.” Walden was referring to the FCC’s now-canceled Critical Information Needs study.

House Commerce Committee Republicans emphasized spectrum and FCC process legislation (see 1412240031) in a 110-page document outlining policy ideas for the coming Congress. “Spectrum is a finite resource that is in ever-increasing demand,” the document said. “To adequately respond to this demand, creative solutions are necessary for clearing, consolidating, and sharing spectrum. There must also be discussion of the appropriate management of spectrum, both federal and commercial, through licensing and authorizing. While there have been significant improvements in spectrum utilization, there still remains a great deal to be done in order to ensure all users are effectively and efficiently using the airwaves they’ve been assigned.” The lawmakers emphasized reallocation, efficiency and sharing of spectrum. The policy document, spanning sectors beyond telecom, “offers a blueprint for our work in the next Congress,” Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., said in a statement. “Our record speaks for itself with over 50 bills signed into law.” The document points to the virtues of the bipartisan Federal Spectrum Incentive Act (HR-3674), introduced in the recent 113th Congress: “This legislation provides a path for federal users that elect to discontinue radio operations without relocating to other frequencies or that relocate operations to share with another federal user, to receive a percentage of the auction proceeds the spectrum generates.”

Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Angus King, I-Maine, defended strong net neutrality protections and pushed for Communications Act Title II reclassification of broadband. They spoke together over the weekend on WGAN’s Inside Maine program, with King interviewing Booker and posting the 13 minutes of audio on his website. Booker and King wrote a joint op-ed earlier this month on the issue (see 1412080045). “It’s not just" you and me, Booker told King, citing the more than 4 million comments the FCC has received on net neutrality. “My office has received thousands of communications.” Booker warned of “a level of unfairness” that could “squelch” businesses. “I doubt if Instagram could get going if someone charged a big entry fee,” King said. He said he and Booker are not “big regulation guys” and said these protections would not amount to that. The FCC “can fix it by simply saying, by treating it as what’s called a common carrier and moving it under Title II,” Booker said, referring to a path under what he said was a recent Supreme Court decision on the issue. The Supreme Court hasn't ruled on net neutrality but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit vacated some net neutrality rules earlier this year and did refer to a statutory path for net neutrality rules. Booker and King said the phone companies “hate” the idea of some net neutrality rules. Booker also said he has friends who work at the major ISPs, specifically alluding to Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen by citing one former political job Cohen held but without naming him explicitly. Cohen has helped with Democratic fundraising. “These are good people,” Booker said. “They come in, as lobbyists do, and they make their case to you.” But Booker disagrees with the reasoning, he said. Booker suspects these big companies will “sue again” over net neutrality. Many congressional Republicans and ISP industry stakeholders object to Title II reclassification.

House Republicans may change how major legislation is scored in the 114th Congress ahead of possible big-ticket telecom items slated for consideration for coming sessions. GOP lawmakers released a draft version Tuesday of a resolution that would establish rules for the next Congress. Cost estimates for legislation deemed major would have to “incorporate macroeconomic effects,” it said: “An estimate provided by the Congressional Budget Office under section 402 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 for any major legislation shall, to the extent practicable, incorporate the budgetary effects of changes in economic output, employment, capital stock, and other macroeconomic variables resulting from such legislation.” Lawmakers in the next Congress have said they want to overhaul the 1996 Telecom Act and may also seek to address net neutrality through legislation. Incoming Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., released several documents Tuesday defending macroeconomic scoring, a concept that was controversial when raised in the past. “The rule defines ‘major legislation’ as any revenue or direct-spending bill that causes a gross increase or decrease in revenues, outlays, or deficits of more than 0.25 percent of GDP in any year covered by the budget resolution,” Ryan said in one section. “The chair of the House Budget Committee and, for purely revenue legislation, the highest-ranking House member on the Joint Committee on Taxation (either chair or vice chair) can designate legislation as 'major' for purposes of this rule if a bill is likely to have a significant economic impact, but does not meet the numerical threshold.” Based on 2014 data, the threshold would have been $43 billion, likely to grow over time, Ryan said. It does not apply to appropriations bills, and in the 113th Congress, only three pieces of legislation would have been subject: the Jobs for America Act (HR-4); the Permanent Bonus Depreciation Act (HR-4718), which addressed a tax issue that the telecom and media industry heavily lobbied on; and the Tax Increase Prevention Act (HR-5771). Macroeconomic scoring will “give members of Congress a better understanding of how their decisions affect the economy,” Ryan said in a document backing such scoring.

Sens. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and Bill Nelson, D-Fla., sent letters to the CEOs of Uber and Lyft inquiring about the companies’ privacy and data security policies. The letters, released Tuesday, asked several questions about how the companies manage their data. The senators sent the letters Dec. 19, and both the letter to Uber and the letter to Lyft cite the enforcement actions that the FTC has taken in this space. Nelson is expected to be ranking member of the Commerce Committee next year.