DOTCOM Act on Track for House Commerce Committee Approval
The Domain Openness Through Continued Oversight Matters (DOTCOM) Act (HR-805) is expected to easily pass through the House Commerce Committee Wednesday amid widening perceptions that compromise language agreed to at last week’s House Communications Subcommittee markup broke a logjam over how to create acceptable oversight of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition, industry officials said in interviews. The compromise HR-805 that House Communications approved would require NTIA to submit a report to Congress certifying that ICANN’s IANA transition plan meets the U.S. goal of maintaining global Internet openness. HR-805 would give Congress 30 legislative days to review the report before NTIA can relinquish its IANA oversight role. The bill also would require NTIA to certify that ICANN has adopted proposed changes to its bylaws (see 1506150064).
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House Commerce Vice Chairwoman Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., endorsed HR-805 in an opening statement released in advance of its planned delivery Tuesday. The bill “will make sure we work through a checklist of ‘to do’ items before completing the IANA transition,” Blackburn said. There’s a “growing consensus that the IANA transition is not yet ready for prime time,” particularly given concerns that domain name registries aren’t abiding by provisions in their contracts with ICANN and that ICANN isn’t effectively enforcing those contracts, Blackburn said.
House Commerce ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., also strongly endorsed HR-805 in an advance copy of his opening statement. The compromise HR-805 “provides the necessary safeguards for the timely transition” of IANA oversight, Pallone said: “As I’ve said before, our approach in the DOTCOM Act is a far better alternative to blocking NTIA’s ability to implement the transition” as was done in the House-passed version of the FY 2016 Department of Commerce budget (HR-2578). The House passed HR-2578 earlier this month (see 1506040052 and 1506020043).
House Communications ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., said the bill is a “sensible solution to ensure that the IANA transition supports and enhances the multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance; maintains the security, stability, and resiliency of the Internet domain name system; and does not replace the role of the NTIA with a government-led or intergovernmental organization solution.”
Support for HR-805 has appeared to continue to increase among non-House Communications members since last week’s markup, an industry lobbyist told us. JKC Consulting President John Kneuer said House Communications’ strong support of HR-805 boded well for the full House Commerce markup. Kneuer, a former NTIA administrator and a Fairfax Media Partners senior partner, has represented clients in the domain name industry but doesn’t represent any currently. Phil Corwin, principal of e-commerce and IP law consultancy Virtualaw, said he also expects House Commerce to clear HR-805, saying he’s “heard nothing to the contrary” that would indicate a vote against the bill.
House Commerce's HR-805 markup is occurring amid the start of Senate consideration of its version of the DOTCOM Act (S-1551), which is identical to HR-805. S-1551 stands a good chance of at least clearing Senate Commerce Committee scrutiny because committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., is the bill’s main sponsor, an industry lobbyist said. Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, and Roger Wicker, R-Miss., are S-1551’s other co-sponsors. It’s still unclear when HR-805 or S-1551 will be able to get enough momentum to get floor votes “given that any problem can jam things up,” but the compromise DOTCOM Act language has dissipated concerns among some members of the ICANN community that Congress was deliberately attempting to derail the IANA transition, Corwin said. “What’s going on is actually helpful in terms of Congress backing the stakeholders and wanting to make sure that adequate accountability measures actually accompany the transition.”