DOTCOM Amendment Approved by House, as Senate Commerce Republicans Request Transition Hearing
The political stakes of NTIA’s plan to transition the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) rose Thursday after passage of the Domain Openness Through Continued Awareness Matters (DOTCOM) Act as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) (HR-4435). The amendment, which seeks to delay the transition until a GAO study is completed, was introduced by the bill’s co-sponsor and House Commerce Committee member John Shimkus, R-Ill. The amendment was approved by 245-177 with full Republican support (http://1.usa.gov/1jYFPsz). Only 17 Democrats supported the amendment. The House passed the NDAA by a vote of 325 to 98 (http://1.usa.gov/1vNmgNA). It’s going to be a “long uphill climb” before any legislation related to the transition is “enacted into law,” said Phil Corwin, founding principal of e-commerce and intellectual property law consultancy Virtualaw.
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The Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for FY2015 (HR-4660) is scheduled for debate on the House floor Wednesday, with a vote as early as Thursday, said a House Republican leadership aide. That bill would provide $36.7 million for NTIA, less than the $51 million requested by the executive branch, and doesn’t include funding for the transition, the appropriations committee has said.
"U.S. stewardship” of IANA has “prevented authoritarian governments from censoring content or restricting access to websites beyond their borders,” said Shimkus in a House floor debate Wednesday. “We know bad actors will certainly try to interfere with whatever overseer takes our place, so that is why I am offering this trust-but-verify amendment today.” The transition will “complete our 16-year-long effort to move management of the domain name system away from governments and into the private sector,” said Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt. House Commerce Committee ranking member Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Commerce Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., sent a “Dear Colleague” letter (http://1.usa.gov/RewFBk) urging the House to oppose the DOTCOM amendment.
Nine Republican Senate Commerce members requested a committee hearing on NTIA’s transition of IANA, in a Wednesday letter (http://1.usa.gov/1okvUTn) to committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., committee ranking member John Thune, R-S.D., Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mark Pryor, D-Ark., and ranking member Roger Wicker, R-Miss. “There are many unresolved questions regarding NTIA’s announcement, and hopefully this hearing can provide some answers,” said Senate Commerce member Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who signed Wednesday’s letter, in a joint news release (http://1.usa.gov/1jyTr1X) Thursday. “Changing the current arrangement with ICANN risks endangering what has made it such a powerful tool for innovation and communications,” said committee member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who also signed the letter.
A Senate Commerce Committee hearing would be a “good idea,” since it’s “incumbent for the Senate to better inform themselves” on the transition, said Virtualaw’s Corwin. “Rockefeller has had a keen interest on ICANN issues before” and could “raise some questions” about the new generic top-level domain rollout, he said. The rollout is the “most ambitious and riskiest program” ICANN has “ever undertaken,” but has been largely overshadowed by the transition, he said. There’s “plenty of meat for the committee to chew,” he said.
"Congress should ensure that it has sufficient information about the IANA transition,” and a hearing is “appropriate,” said Statton Hammock, vice president-legal affairs of domain services company Rightside, not referring to the hearing requested by Senate Commerce Republicans. Legislation isn’t “warranted to implement more oversight of the process,” he said. If NTIA’s four guiding principles (http://1.usa.gov/1d33FkM) for the transition aren’t met, it won’t make the transition, he said. “NTIA and other stakeholders will make sure there is proper oversight and accountability of the ICANN process.”
The transition is now a “politicized issue” and is “only going to become more complicated and potentially more contentious as more and more parties” become involved in the debate, said CEO Nao Matsukata of FairWinds Partners, a domain consultancy. The debate is “healthy,” given the perceived “rush in the global community to find a resolution” to the transition, he said. Regardless of whether one agrees with Democrats or Republicans, the debate is “allowing for more people to get engaged” and to “become more educated about the issue, so that we can have a more informed and thoughtful outcome,” he said.