The House Commerce Committee is eyeing May 8 for a markup of its Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act (STELA) reauthorization draft bill, Capitol Hill and industry sources told us. But multiple people on and off the Hill also said no deal has been reached between Democrats and Republicans, who were divided on the House draft bill’s language on the set-top box integration ban provision as well as the provision that would limit FCC actions on broadcaster sharing agreements until the agency completes its media ownership quadrennial review -- key points of tension when the draft bill advanced out of the Communications Subcommittee earlier this year. There’s no agreement on how to proceed, and many key staffers have been out of town for the NCTA Cable Show, one media industry lobbyist told us. One Hill aide pushed back against judging anything too soon, pointing to many floating rumors but nothing concrete nailed down yet. A second industry official also said he has heard May 8 as the markup day and predicts it will go relatively smoothly. The real hurdle is the language on sharing agreements but the integration ban provision is a settled issue, with no further back-and-forth happening now, that official said. Staffers don’t seem inclined to add any provisions into the draft at this point, the official added. A committee spokesman did not confirm or deny the accuracy of any committee agreement or disagreement on the draft or proposed dates for the markup. The House Judiciary Committee will hold two hearings at the subcommittee level that same day on video issues in 2141 Rayburn -- the first at 9:30 a.m. will be the Antitrust Subcommittee’s oversight hearing of Comcast’s proposed purchase of Time Warner Cable, and the second at 2 p.m. will be the IP Subcommittee’s hearing on compulsory video licenses of Copyright Act Title 17. That second hearing, which multiple officials framed as a STELA hearing, will include Marci Burdick testifying on behalf of NAB and a representative from Dish, one media lobbyist said.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved by voice vote the nomination of Elisebeth Collins Cook to be a member of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, during an executive session Thursday. Cook has been one of the Republican members of the five-member board, which has offered several recommendations to the White House on phone surveillance and is putting together recommendations on Internet surveillance. She was formerly a Senate Judiciary Committee counsel and now counsel for WilmerHale. President Barack Obama re-nominated Cook in December and if approved by the full Senate her term would continue through 2020.

The Senate Intelligence Committee confirmed it has been circulating a discussion draft of its long-awaited cybersecurity information sharing bill. Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and ranking member Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., said in joint statement Wednesday that they sent the draft “to relevant parties in the executive branch, private industry and the privacy community for comment. Once those comments are returned, which we hope will happen quickly, we will consider the final legislation.” The draft bill, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, is seen to closely resemble the House-passed Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (HR-624), but includes numerous additional privacy protections (CD April 30 p19).

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., is worried about the FCC’s net neutrality proposal. “I write today to express my concerns that you may be stepping back from an earlier commitment to policies that ensure an open and free Internet for all Americans,” Nelson, a senior member of the Commerce Committee, told FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in a letter Wednesday. “I am very concerned about reports that the NPRM will presumptively allow ‘paid prioritization arrangements’ as long as they are ‘commercially reasonable.'” Allowing these deals “could upset the basic concept of an open Internet and would be very difficult to remedy at a later time,” Nelson said. The agency needs to “draw a brighter line” in this regard, Nelson insisted, despite acknowledging that Wheeler is trying to operate in parameters of a court ruling that struck down previous net neutrality rules. “As part of that analysis, I also urge the Commission to carefully consider whether section 706 provides the best pathway for these rules or whether Title II, with appropriate forbearance, provides a more sound approach.” Several public interest advocates have recommended the FCC reclassify broadband as a Communications Act Title II service, subject to more regulation. Several other Senate Democrats have voiced fears that these proposed rules are too weak, despite the FCC’s ardent defense of what they're doing and an insistence that this is a first step (CD April 30 p11). Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., bashed the FCC proposal Wednesday. “Reports that the FCC may gut net neutrality are disturbing, and would be just one more way the playing field is tilted for the rich and powerful who have already made it,” Warren said in a Facebook post (http://on.fb.me/1kiMEGc). “Our regulators already have all the tools they need to protect a free and open Internet -- where a handful of companies cannot block or filter or charge access fees for what we do online. They should stand up and use them.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee appears unlikely to have final language ready on a compromise manager’s amendment to the Patent Transparency and Improvements Act (S-1720) in time to mark up the bill Thursday, several industry observers told us Wednesday. Negotiations on the compromise language continued Wednesday, a Senate Judiciary aide told us. A markup of S-1720 remained on the agenda for the committee’s executive business meeting Thursday, which is to begin at 10 a.m. in 226 Dirksen. Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., had hoped to release the text of the manager’s amendment as soon as the Senate returned from recess Monday (CD April 29 p6). Work on the manager’s amendment has been complicated in part by the Supreme Court’s rulings Tuesday in two patent cases on the application of fee-shifting rules, two industry lobbyists told us. The two cases -- Highmark v. Allcare Health Management System and Octane Fitness v. ICON Fitness & Health -- collectively loosened fee-shifting rules, which patent revamp advocates said the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit was applying too stringently. The rulings drew praise from several patent revamp advocates, including the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) and the Internet Association. The rulings are a “bump in the road” because “they're in the same sandbox as the legislation,” said Cathy Sloan, CCIA vice president-government relations, in an interview. “As drafters of the legislation, you have to adjust for that. They're not big changes, but you can’t just pretend the new precedent isn’t there. You have to draft around it a little bit.”

The American TV Alliance pushed back against TVFreedom’s claims that public safety is a key part of why cable operators must carry broadcast stations, as has been lobbied for before Congress. TVFreedom, a coalition of broadcaster interests, had written a blog post for The Hill Tuesday (CD April 19 p19), and an ATVA spokesman, speaking for pay-TV industry interests, wrote one for the same outlet Wednesday. “Enough with the hyperbole,” the ATVA spokesman said (http://bit.ly/1kpHRnE). “Everyone supports public safety first and foremost. ... Cable and satellite TV providers are working with broadcasters to update the Emergency Alert System, which notifies the public of safety threats 24/7.” He attacked broadcasters on retransmission consent rules, which broadcasters have long defended. The fights have become wrapped up in the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act reauthorization process.

Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., wants the Computer and Communications Industry Association to weigh in on Comcast’s proposed buy of Time Warner Cable. “Do you believe that Comcast’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable would harm the public interest?” Franken asked CCIA President Ed Black in a letter Wednesday (http://1.usa.gov/1kurRSY). “What impact will the deal have on competition in relevant markets, and, ultimately, on consumers? Finally, please provide any other relevant views, including any thoughts you have about arguments made in the Public Interest Statement that Comcast recently filed with the FCC or in the testimony that Comcast and Time Warner Cable recently provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee.” Franken opposes the deal, which Comcast has strongly defended as good for consumers. CCIA’s members “depend on broadband networks to operate,” Franken added.

A House appropriations bill would slate $36.7 million for NTIA in FY2015, well below the $51 million the executive branch requested. The bill would allocate $8.35 billion for the Commerce Department, $95 million less than the White House requested but $71 million more than was enacted for FY2014. The House Appropriations Commerce, Justice and Science Subcommittee released the draft appropriations bill this week (http://1.usa.gov/R0JwHJ) and cleared the proposed budget unanimously Wednesday by voice vote. “For the administration of prior-year grants, recoveries and unobligated balances of funds previously appropriated are available for the administration of all open grants until their expiration,” the draft bill said in a section titled “Public Telecommunications Facilities, Planning and Construction.” Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker testified before Senate and House lawmakers early in April on these budget items. “To continue expanding broadband capacity and promoting policies to ensure a free and open Internet, the budget requests a total of $51 million” for NTIA to “support increasing wireless broadband access and critical telecommunications policy coordination,” Pritzker had said (CD April 11 p5). House lawmakers emphasized the bill preserves core priority spending, and “bolstering cybersecurity” is one such priority, subcommittee Chairman Frank Wolf, R-Va., said in a statement. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office would receive $46 billion, equivalent to what’s estimated to come in from fees and $434 million above FY2014. The National Institute of Standards and Technology would receive $856 million, $5.8 million above FY2014 and $44.2 million less than what the White House proposed.

The Senate Intelligence Committee’s proposed cybersecurity information sharing bill is currently called the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, according to a discussion draft leaked to The Washington Post (http://bit.ly/1rBOGFa). Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and committee ranking member Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., have been leading development of the bill. Spokesmen for both senators did not respond to requests for confirmation of the draft’s authenticity. The committee had been seeking industry comment on the bill before the leak, an industry official told us. The draft includes liability protections that would prohibit lawsuits against entities sharing cyberthreat information with “any other entity or the federal government.” Several observers told us the draft closely resembles the House-passed Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), albeit with an expected increase in privacy protections (CD April 23 p7). The bill would direct the Secretary of Homeland Security, Director of National Intelligence and Attorney General to develop and execute procedures that would allow the “timely sharing” of classified and declassified cyberthreat information between the federal government and “appropriate entities,” along with the public release of some declassified threat information. The bill contains several privacy protections, including requiring any shared cyberthreat information be stripped of “any information contained within such indicators that is known to be personal information of or identifying a United States person, not directly related to a cybersecurity threat.” The bill would only allow law enforcement agencies to use shared information with the written consent of entities involved, but allows for oral consent when “the need for immediate use prevents obtaining written consent.” The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board would be required to issue a report every two years assessing the privacy and civil liberties impacts of cyberinformation sharing and assess current protections. Involved federal agencies and their inspectors general would also be required to issue biennial reports on implementation of the bill. The leak of the Senate Intelligence draft, whether authorized or not, likely indicates the committee is “getting close” to formally introducing the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, said James Lewis, director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Technology and Public Policy program. Several observers have said they're skeptical that Senate Intelligence can clear a cyberinformation sharing bill in time to get it through the full Senate and conference with the House, particularly given the fallout over controversial National Security Agency surveillance programs. The draft bill is “one of the most vanilla” cyber bills possible, and has more support from the White House than CISPA (HR-624) because of the enhanced privacy protections, Lewis said. But Senate Intelligence likely only has about five or six weeks to “see if they can get this one moved,” he said. “The issue is, starting at about the end of May, people will begin to think more about re-election and less about legislation.”

"I appreciate NETmundial’s statement endorsing” NTIA’s transition of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions “to the multi-stakeholder community,” said House Communications Subcommittee member Mike Doyle, D-Pa., by email Monday. Scholars and lawmakers are divided on the political implications for NTIA’s transition at NETmundial, last week’s Internet governance conference in Sao Paulo, Brazil (CD April 29 p9). “The opposition of certain countries to this course of action provides proof, if any were needed,” that the transition is an “important step in maintaining the Internet as a platform for free expression and innovation,” said Doyle. A few autocratic regimes, including Russia, expressed concern over NETmundial’s final outcome document (http://bit.ly/1nLhMBC), which endorsed NTIA’s transition and the multistakeholder model.