The House Judiciary IP Subcommittee will hold its previously scheduled second hearing this month on music licensing (CD June 11 p12) in 2141 Rayburn at 10 a.m. Wednesday (http://1.usa.gov/1pIUuAG). Music industry officials and artist advocates are waiting to see what licensing issues House Judiciary IP Subcommittee ranking member Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., tackles in his in-progress “MusicBus” bill, expected to be introduced this summer (CD June 19 p11). The hearing’s previously confirmed witnesses are musician Rosanne Cash on behalf of the Americana Music Association; Ed Christian, Radio Music License Committee chairman; David Frear, Sirius XM chief financial officer; Chris Harrison, Pandora Media vice president-business affairs; Michael Huppe, CEO of SoundExchange; Cary Sherman, RIAA CEO; Charles Warfield, YMF Media senior adviser on behalf of NAB; and Paul Williams, American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers president. Pandora Media originally scheduled General Counsel Delinda Costin as its witness.

The Senate Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee wants to “fully fund” what it considers two key agencies, it said Tuesday -- the FCC and FTC. It recommended far more money for the FCC in FY 2015 than what the House has begun to suggest. The Senate subcommittee cleared an appropriations bill at a meeting Tuesday morning, recommending $375 million for the FCC in FY 2015 “to ensure that the telecommunications networks are reliable and robust” and $293 million for FTC “to detect and eliminate consumer fraud and promote consumer privacy,” as Subcommittee Chairman Tom Udall, D-N.M., said at the meeting. The FCC had requested $375.38 million for FY 2015 and in FY 2014 received $339.84 million. The House Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee had cleared a bill last week that recommends $322.75 million for the FCC. The House bill would slate $293 million for the FTC, $5 million less than FY 2014’s enacted level and at the White House budget request, with no difference from the Senate subcommittee version. The full House Appropriations Committee will consider that bill Wednesday at 10 a.m. in 2359 Rayburn and this week has released a bill text (http://1.usa.gov/1jLsiWq) and accompanying report (http://1.usa.gov/ViQA4T).

The Senate Judiciary Committee field hearing on net neutrality will begin July 1 at 10 a.m. at the Davis Center at the University of Vermont in Burlington, the committee said Tuesday. Witnesses weren’t announced.

Comcast’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable brings up several “key concerns,” Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and subcommittee ranking member Mike Lee, R-Utah, told the FCC and Justice Department in a letter Monday. The two-page letter focused on their hearing earlier this year on the deal, and pointed to several issues witnesses had raised. “Witnesses voiced concerns that the merger may negatively affect the development of online video distribution, give the combined entity undue market power as a buyer in the market for programming, and increase the combined entity’s incentive and ability to restrict access to content by rival multichannel video programming distributors,” Klobuchar and Lee said, also citing what they see as the deal’s threats to independent programming. Comcast has argued the deal would be good for consumers, which the senators also mention. Klobuchar and Lee said they plan to keep working with regulators and talking more as the proceeding continues, filing “additional comments once the FCC record is complete.”

Four House Judiciary Committee leaders praised the compromise that Senate Judiciary Committee lawmakers unveiled on a cellphone unlocking bill earlier this week (CD June 24 p10). The Senate language mirrors language the House used in the Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act (HR-1123), passed earlier this year. “This is an issue of consumer choice and flexibility, plain and simple,” said House Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., ranking member John Conyers, D-Mich., and Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet subcommittee Chairman Howard Coble, R-N.C., and that subcommittee’s ranking member Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., in a joint statement.

"I don’t know” if AT&T has given money to lobby against municipal broadband networks, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said at a Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee hearing Tuesday. He “personally” is against making a private company compete against networks funded by taxpayer dollars, unless the area is unserved, Stephenson told Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., who pressed the executive on his company’s stance. Franken said many mayors and other municipal officials favor creating such networks. Stephenson repeatedly indicated he wasn’t sure where his company’s lobbying expenses went, declining to answer Franken’s questions about AT&T lobbying on that issue. AT&T is a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council, which has model state legislation restricting municipal networks and that has helped pass state laws of that kind.

Appropriations bills for the FCC and FTC FY15 budgets will receive scrutiny in both the Senate and House this week. Both agencies fall under the review of the Appropriations Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee in each chamber. The Senate panel will review its appropriations bill for the first time Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. in 124 Dirksen. The House subcommittee cleared its appropriations bill last week (CD June 19 p15), and the full House Appropriations Committee will consider that bill Wednesday at 10 a.m. in 2359 Rayburn. That House subcommittee budget would give the FCC $53 million less than the agency’s request: $323 million, $17 million less than FY14’s enacted level. It would allocate $293 million for the FTC, $5 million less than FY14’s enacted level and at the White House budget request.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will soon review a bipartisan compromise on cellphone unlocking, its leaders said in a news release Monday (http://1.usa.gov/1lLU8aB). Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and ranking member Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, forged the deal and added the modified Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act to the agenda for the committee’s Thursday executive session. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., had led an effort in the House, which passed a cellphone unlocking bill (HR-1123) earlier this year. “Consumers should be able to use their existing cell phones when they move their service to a new wireless provider,” Leahy said in a statement, citing work “for months with Ranking Member Grassley, Chairman Goodlatte and House members, consumer advocates and wireless providers” on “common sense legislation that puts consumers first by allowing them to ‘unlock’ their cell phones.” Leahy posted the four-page amendment to S-517 online (http://1.usa.gov/1q1NyyF). “While there are larger ongoing debates about Section 1201 of the DMCA [Digital Millennium Copyright Act], as well as other aspects of phone unlocking, those issues are not addressed by this bill,” a Leahy fact sheet about the legislation said (http://1.usa.gov/1nYrB0g). Judiciary’s Thursday session, which will also address the committee’s Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act bill, is at 9:30 a.m. in 226 Dirksen. CTIA thanked Leahy for trying to “alleviate consumer confusion” and is “pleased this bill achieves that objective without imposing any obligations on carriers,” said Vice President-Government Affairs Jot Carpenter in a statement. The Competitive Carriers Association and Public Knowledge also praised the release of the modified bill. “Not only does the Leahy/Grassley bill restore the right to unlock phones, but it includes provisions that allow for third party help in unlocking a device, as we saw in the House-passed version of this bill,” said Public Knowledge Vice President-Government Relations Chris Lewis.

Privacy advocates Friday lauded the House’s Thursday passage of an amendment to the Department of Defense Appropriations bill (HR-4870) to prohibit the NSA from using funds to conduct warrantless searches of information collected under Section 702 of the Patriot Act. Section 702 authorizes various types of Internet surveillance efforts, including gathering electronic communications from ISPs and Internet traffic information from backbone providers (CD March 20 p4). The amendment from Reps. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., and Thomas Massie, R-Ky., resolves issues the USA Freedom Act (HR-3361) “fails to address,” said Harley Geiger, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT). The bipartisan 293-123 vote to support the amendment shows “clearly there is political will” to go beyond HR-3361, said Geiger. The USA Freedom Act passed the House in late May (CD May 23 p9). “The Massie/Lofgren amendment would also forbid the NSA from using its funds to induce companies to introduce new security vulnerabilities in technology products and services in order to facilitate surveillance,” said Greg Nojeim, CDT’s senior counsel and director of the Freedom, Security and Technology Project. “These are significant and sorely-needed reforms that enhance privacy and user trust in American technology,” he said. Demand Progress Executive Director David Segal said HR-3361 was “rewritten in secret at the last minute,” and the passage of this amendment shows “the American people will not accept half-measures or superficial reforms. The Senate, which is considering its own version of the USA Freedom Act, “should ensure” its version “protects our constitutional rights,” Segal said. The Electronic Frontier Foundation also supported the amendment’s passage in a Thursday night statement (http://bit.ly/1lSyqfj).

The Communications Act of 1934 is showing its age and needs an update, House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., reiterated Thursday in a message on the House Commerce Committee website (http://1.usa.gov/1m4LPWm). President Franklin Roosevelt had signed the Communications Act 80 years ago as of Thursday, thus creating the FCC. “Now I won’t claim to know what was going on in the minds of lawmakers in 1934, but I think it’s safe to say the members of the 73rd Congress did not have daydreams of the Internet or the near-ubiquitous connectivity of today’s mobile wireless networks,” Walden declared, saying the act “falls woefully short in accounting for the many innovative technologies we enjoy today.” In December, he and other House Commerce Committee Republicans had launched an attempt to update the act, with hearings and white papers this year and legislation next year. “We have received tremendous public input on our #CommActUpdate and encourage that to continue as we release additional white papers on the detailed issues that weigh so heavily on today’s communications marketplace,” Walden said. The House Republicans have released three white papers exploring these issues so far. The latest, on competition policy, which the subcommittee only recently posted online (http://1.usa.gov/1psSfzA) has received 84 responses.