Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., filed cloture (here) to limit debate on the customs reauthorization bill, HR-644, a step towards a final vote on the Senate floor expected Feb. 11. Despite the momentum, Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., remains opposed to the bill’s inclusion of a provision that would extend the Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act (PITFA), he said in Feb. 10 interview. Alexander plans to vote against a motion to advance customs for a final vote on Feb. 11. Last month, Alexander teamed up with Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., in seeking lawmaker support for raising a point of order that PITFA is outside the bill’s scope (see 1601140004).
The Obama administration’s FY 2017 proposal would include funding to continue FCC headquarters relocation and to overhaul the agency’s IT systems, with money for what it calls a geospatial information system solution. Tuesday's proposal also includes provisions on auctioning the 1675-1680 MHz band and calls for an FTC transaction fee change for especially expensive deals.
ICANN’s selection of Swedish Post and Telecom Authority (PTS) Director-General Göran Marby to be the nonprofit’s next permanent president and CEO (see the Communications Daily Bulletin here and 1602080025) drew both praise and concern Monday from communications and Internet stakeholders. Some told us Marby’s tech background will be an asset to ICANN. Others raised concerns about his record at Sweden’s postal and telecom regulatory body. Marby was previously CEO at AppGate Network Security, Cygate and Unisource Business Networks, and has been Cisco’s country manager for Sweden.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was set to file cloture on Feb. 9 for the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act, which would send the legislation to a Senate floor vote on Feb. 11, several staffers and Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, told International Trade Today. But cloture had not been reached by press time, as Senate floor debate continued.
ICANN’s selection of Swedish Post and Telecom Authority (PTS) Director-General Göran Marby to be the nonprofit’s next permanent president and CEO (see the Communications Daily Bulletin here and 1602080025) drew both praise and concern Monday from communications and Internet stakeholders. Some told us Marby’s tech background will be an asset to ICANN. Others raised concerns about his record at Sweden’s postal and telecom regulatory body. Marby was previously CEO at AppGate Network Security, Cygate and Unisource Business Networks, and has been Cisco’s country manager for Sweden.
Three small video relay service providers pushed the FCC to raise and freeze their VRS compensation rate, which would otherwise drop further from its current $4.82 per minute under ongoing agency rate cuts. ASL Services Holdings, Convo Communications and Hancock Jahn asked for the relief in recent meetings or calls with commission officials, according to filings they posted Thursday in docket 10-51. In a Further NPRM, the FCC proposed a 16-month freeze, partially retroactive, from July 1, 2015, to Oct. 31, 2016, at a previous $5.29 per minute rate for small (“Tier I,” with fewer than 500,000 calling minutes per month) VRS providers (see 1511030064). The small VRS providers said the relief was justified by their costs, and the matter was urgent. Smaller providers face various financial and operational challenges that prevent them from gaining market share, much less becoming profitable, and don't have the same economies of scale as larger incumbents, ASL Services said. Its officials "concluded that unless the Commission can affirmatively compensate smaller providers in accordance with their service costs and implement other needed reforms to enable smaller providers to meaningfully compete, that the smaller providers will be forced to exit the provision of VRS, resulting in a severe limitation on consumer choice and services to underserved communities." The FCC should immediately "stabilize Tier I Providers and move toward a more appropriate rate-setting and transparency methodology," Hancock Jahn said. Convo believes the FCC has all the information it needs to freeze the Tier I rate, including that the company "began and ended 2015 with a total allowable costs per-minute which was higher than the applicable compensation rate." The commission should act "in the next few days," given the providers' need for lead time in planning operations, particularly given the "significant differential" between their allowable costs and the lower rate that took effect on Jan. 1, Convo said.
GOP presidential contender Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and two other senators who have been skeptical about the planned Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition raised concerns Thursday about retiring ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé's involvement with the controversial Chinese government-led World Internet Conference (WIC). Chehadé agreed to become the co-chairman of a high-level advisory committee to WIC after his planned March departure from ICANN, along with planned roles as a senior adviser to Abry Partners and World Economic Forum Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab. Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke at WIC's December conference in Wuzhen, China, supporting allowing countries to “independently choose their own path of cyber development,” raising concerns among pro-multistakeholder Internet governance stakeholders (see 1512180049 and 1512290044).
GOP presidential contender Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and two other senators who have been skeptical about the planned Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition raised concerns Thursday about retiring ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé's involvement with the controversial Chinese government-led World Internet Conference (WIC). Chehadé agreed to become the co-chairman of a high-level advisory committee to WIC after his planned March departure from ICANN, along with planned roles as a senior adviser to Abry Partners and World Economic Forum Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab. Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke at WIC's December conference in Wuzhen, China, supporting allowing countries to “independently choose their own path of cyber development,” raising concerns among pro-multistakeholder Internet governance stakeholders (see 1512180049 and 1512290044).
Thirty-five retail and advocacy entities urged the agency to downgrade Uzbekistan back to Tier 3 in the State Department’s 2016 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report, claiming a lack of action on its commitments to end forced labor, in a Jan. 30 letter (here) to the agency. The 2015 TIP report improved the country to Tier 2 Watch List. “Any other placement would reward the government of Uzbekistan in spite of its continued, flagrant disregard of its national laws and international commitments,” the association, dubbed the “Cotton Campaign,” said in its letter. “The Tier 3 placement would, on the other hand, communicate the need to end forced labor to the government of Uzbekistan.
More changes are on the way for the Food and Drug Administration’s supplemental guide for filing in the Automated Commercial Environment, but the changes are meant to ease, not add to the burden on industry, said Sandra Abbott, director of FDA’s Division of Compliance Systems, during a webinar hosted by the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America on Feb. 3. The basic data elements that will become mandatory Feb. 28 are set, but FDA still needs to fix bugs that are causing hiccups for filers, she said.