Slow Progress Cited at Hill Telecom Meeting
It was “more of the same” in the second Hill talk among House and Senate Commerce Committee staffers and about 30 outside parties interested in updating the Telecom Act, said attendee Andrew Schwartzman, senior vice president of the Media Access Project. The gathering, held behind closed doors Friday morning in the Russell Senate Office Building, was a follow up to a June 25 meeting hosted by the House (CD June 28 p1). All attendees from the previous week except Sprint Nextel and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation returned.
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Schwartzman said progress is apparent but slow. Discussion was high-level, but this week the group talked more specifically about what provisions of the Telecom Act should be part of targeted legislation, he said. The structure of the meeting followed that of the previous meeting, and the tenor of debate remained friendly, he added. Next week’s meeting returns to the House side and will discuss spectrum issues facing Congress and the FCC, a Senate staffer said.
Google and Microsoft’s representatives at the meeting used to work for the Hill Commerce committees, the Sunlight Foundation noted Friday on its blog. Google’s Johanna Shelton used to work for the House Commerce Committee, while Microsoft’s Paula Boyd used to work for the Senate Commerce Committee. Citing data from lobbyist disclosure forms and the Center for Responsive Politics, the foundation said 74 percent of the lobbyists hired by the two network neutrality supporters from January to March had previous experience in government. The companies hired 13 former members and staffers of the Senate Commerce Committee, and nine from the House Commerce Committee, the foundation said.
Google and Microsoft have spent more on lobbying than any other net neutrality advocate at the meetings, spending $2.1 million in Q1 this year, the Sunlight Foundation said. Sunlight is funded in part by Google, which has a seat on the group’s advisory board. It had a similar report two weeks ago on lobbying by major ISPs (CD June 22 p1).