FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and the two Republican commissioners are at odds over letters the agency sent Wednesday to AT&T, Comcast and T-Mobile, seeking input on zero-rating product offerings that could have net neutrality implications. "This is not an investigation," Wheeler said Thursday during the commission's meeting. "These were 'let's get informed.' This is to help us stay informed as to what the practices are." On the contrary, Commissioner Ajit Pai said later as he and Commissioner Michael O'Rielly criticized the letters and the way they were issued: "This is an investigation. This is not simply benign."

The text of the Cybersecurity Act -- the conference-approved cybersecurity information sharing bill -- as anticipated (see 1512070056 and 1512150074) is included in the FY 2016 omnibus spending bill released Wednesday and this almost certainly means the conference language will make it through Congress. What happens once it reaches President Barack Obama is far less clear, industry lawyers and lobbyists said in interviews. The omnibus didn’t include policy riders that would have curbed the FCC’s February net neutrality order but did include a bipartisan rider that would grandfather broadcaster joint sales agreements from before the FCC limited them in March 2014 (see 1512160061). The omnibus also extended the current ban on NTIA’s use of funds for the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition through the end of FY 2016. NTIA’s current contract with ICANN to administer the IANA functions is set to expire at the end of FY 2016. The IANA transition rider doesn’t extend into FY 2017 absent “any other law” enacted in the meantime.

The text of the Cybersecurity Act -- the conference-approved cybersecurity information sharing bill -- as anticipated (see 1512070056 and 1512150074) is included in the FY 2016 omnibus spending bill released Wednesday and this almost certainly means the conference language will make it through Congress. What happens once it reaches President Barack Obama is far less clear, industry lawyers and lobbyists said in interviews. The omnibus didn’t include policy riders that would have curbed the FCC’s February net neutrality order but did include a bipartisan rider that would grandfather broadcaster joint sales agreements from before the FCC limited them in March 2014 (see 1512160061). The omnibus also extended the current ban on NTIA’s use of funds for the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition through the end of FY 2016. NTIA’s current contract with ICANN to administer the IANA functions is set to expire at the end of FY 2016. The IANA transition rider doesn’t extend into FY 2017 absent “any other law” enacted in the meantime.

Lawmakers resigned themselves Tuesday to advancing another continuing resolution to fund the government once current funding expires at the end of Wednesday. They hoped to reach a deal and release a FY 2016 omnibus funding bill by late Tuesday, but no deal was announced by our deadline. Senate Republican leaders vowed during a news conference they would advance appropriations measures by regular order next year and hope doing so is possible now that top-line budget numbers are set as part of a recent enacted two-year budget deal. “We’ll be able to have a couple of days to read it and digest it before we vote on it after the House does on Thursday, I hope, and it could slip into Friday,” Senate GOP Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, told reporters Tuesday: “That’s the goal.” Cornyn told us he hasn’t heard of any net neutrality issues getting wrapped into the omnibus government funding deal being negotiated. Among the policy riders, there’s a likely rider to grandfather broadcaster joint sales agreements and a rumored possible rider limiting the FCC’s regulation of ISP rates. The bipartisan leadership of the Senate Commerce Committee has doubted the net neutrality rider would make it into any omnibus deal. Cornyn said the GOP caucus will try to get a majority of Senate Republicans backing the omnibus but didn’t commit to that. “Part of the challenge is of course we would like to get more riders to restrict the Obama administration's regulations, but if Republicans don’t vote for the bill, you have to go get Democrats to vote for it to pass it, then they’re going to say, we’re taking those out,” Cornyn said of current negotiation in the omnibus overall. “Which has been part of the challenge.” Cornyn also said “we’re not going to have that vote now” of the conference version of the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act (HR-644), which includes a permanent extension of the Internet Tax Freedom Act (see 1512090060). “I don’t think it’s going to be stripped out of the conference report, but I do think there have been concerns that have been raised by those who support the Marketplace Fairness Act,” Cornyn told reporters of the permanent extension, heavily backed by ISP trade associations. “But the problem has been in the House. The Senate’s passed that previously by a pretty good margin. I think there’ll have to be a conversation about how to address the concerns of the folks that support that.”

Lawmakers resigned themselves Tuesday to advancing another continuing resolution to fund the government once current funding expires at the end of Wednesday. They hoped to reach a deal and release a FY 2016 omnibus funding bill by late Tuesday, but no deal was announced by our deadline. Senate Republican leaders vowed during a news conference they would advance appropriations measures by regular order next year and hope doing so is possible now that top-line budget numbers are set as part of a recent enacted two-year budget deal. “We’ll be able to have a couple of days to read it and digest it before we vote on it after the House does on Thursday, I hope, and it could slip into Friday,” Senate GOP Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, told reporters Tuesday: “That’s the goal.” Cornyn told us he hasn’t heard of any net neutrality issues getting wrapped into the omnibus government funding deal being negotiated. Among the policy riders, there’s a likely rider to grandfather broadcaster joint sales agreements and a rumored possible rider limiting the FCC’s regulation of ISP rates. The bipartisan leadership of the Senate Commerce Committee has doubted the net neutrality rider would make it into any omnibus deal. Cornyn said the GOP caucus will try to get a majority of Senate Republicans backing the omnibus but didn’t commit to that. “Part of the challenge is of course we would like to get more riders to restrict the Obama administration's regulations, but if Republicans don’t vote for the bill, you have to go get Democrats to vote for it to pass it, then they’re going to say, we’re taking those out,” Cornyn said of current negotiation in the omnibus overall. “Which has been part of the challenge.” Cornyn also said “we’re not going to have that vote now” of the conference version of the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act (HR-644), which includes a permanent extension of the Internet Tax Freedom Act (see 1512090060). “I don’t think it’s going to be stripped out of the conference report, but I do think there have been concerns that have been raised by those who support the Marketplace Fairness Act,” Cornyn told reporters of the permanent extension, heavily backed by ISP trade associations. “But the problem has been in the House. The Senate’s passed that previously by a pretty good margin. I think there’ll have to be a conversation about how to address the concerns of the folks that support that.”

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, again asked the Office of Personnel Management to remove Chief Information Officer Donna Seymour, who he said is "unfit" to do her job. Despite repeated warnings from the Office of the Inspector General, Seymour "failed to prevent breaches of personally-identifiable information," Chaffetz wrote in a letter sent Thursday to acting OPM Director Beth Cobert. "[Seymour's] failure put more than 22 million federal employees and other individuals at risk, and weakened our national security." Chaffetz cited a Dec. 2 IG "special review," which said "significant deficiencies existed" in how OPM's Office of Procurement Operations managed the award process of a credit monitoring and identity theft services contract. Chaffetz said "yet another IG report has found that Ms. Seymour failed to effectively fulfill her duties." OPM Press Secretary Sam Schumach sent us an email saying the agency awarded the contract on an expedited basis to protect millions of breach victims. "Although the OIG’s report describes several areas where the procurement process could have been improved -- some of which were proactively raised by OPM to OIG -- the OIG did not find that these issues affected the outcome of the award," Schumach wrote. "OPM has worked proactively with the OIG to address and correct deficiencies as they were identified, including those identified by OPM prior to the OIG’s engagement." Schumach also said since Seymour came to OPM in late 2013, it has "undertaken an aggressive effort to upgrade the agency’s cybersecurity posture, adding numerous tools and capabilities to its various legacy networks. These improvements were instrumental in helping Donna and her team identify the recent cybersecurity incidents."

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, again asked the Office of Personnel Management to remove Chief Information Officer Donna Seymour, who he said is "unfit" to do her job. Despite repeated warnings from the Office of the Inspector General, Seymour "failed to prevent breaches of personally-identifiable information," Chaffetz wrote in a letter sent Thursday to acting OPM Director Beth Cobert. "[Seymour's] failure put more than 22 million federal employees and other individuals at risk, and weakened our national security." Chaffetz cited a Dec. 2 IG "special review," which said "significant deficiencies existed" in how OPM's Office of Procurement Operations managed the award process of a credit monitoring and identity theft services contract. Chaffetz said "yet another IG report has found that Ms. Seymour failed to effectively fulfill her duties." OPM Press Secretary Sam Schumach sent us an email saying the agency awarded the contract on an expedited basis to protect millions of breach victims. "Although the OIG’s report describes several areas where the procurement process could have been improved -- some of which were proactively raised by OPM to OIG -- the OIG did not find that these issues affected the outcome of the award," Schumach wrote. "OPM has worked proactively with the OIG to address and correct deficiencies as they were identified, including those identified by OPM prior to the OIG’s engagement." Schumach also said since Seymour came to OPM in late 2013, it has "undertaken an aggressive effort to upgrade the agency’s cybersecurity posture, adding numerous tools and capabilities to its various legacy networks. These improvements were instrumental in helping Donna and her team identify the recent cybersecurity incidents."

The White House is reportedly reviewing what may be a “close-to-final” draft of a conference cybersecurity information sharing bill, two industry lobbyists told us Wednesday. Behind-the-scenes negotiations on legislation have ramped up in recent days following the circulation over the weekend of the House and Senate Intelligence committees’ preferred language on the bill (see 1512070056). Congress’ Homeland Security and Intelligence committees have been grappling with how to reconcile the Senate-passed Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (S-754) and two House-passed bills -- the Protecting Cyber Networks Act (HR-1560) and the National Cybersecurity Protection Advancement Act (HR-1731). House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said in a statement Tuesday that he and the leaders of Congress’ Intelligence committees have been making progress in their negotiations. McCaul had apparently raised concerns about the degree to which the Intelligence committees’ earlier text had shifted the center of gravity in an extended information sharing apparatus too far away from the Department of Homeland Security in favor of intelligence and law enforcement agencies, a lobbyist said. It was unclear at our deadline whether the White House was likely to agree to the current conference text since some issues remained under negotiation, but that the text was at a point where it could receive White House review is “definitely encouraging,” a lobbyist said. The White House didn’t comment. Meanwhile, Fight for the Future and 18 other digital rights and privacy groups jointly sent a letter Wednesday encouraging House and Senate leaders to oppose the current conference bill. The current language “is the result of secret negotiations between the House and Senate intelligence committees at the expense of critical expert input from the House Committee on Homeland Security, and it loses any advantages and improvements” that resulted from the DHS-centric HR-1731, the groups said in their letter. The House inserted HR-1731’s language into HR-1560 before sending the bill to the Senate.

The White House is reportedly reviewing what may be a “close-to-final” draft of a conference cybersecurity information sharing bill, two industry lobbyists told us Wednesday. Behind-the-scenes negotiations on legislation have ramped up in recent days following the circulation over the weekend of the House and Senate Intelligence committees’ preferred language on the bill (see 1512070056). Congress’ Homeland Security and Intelligence committees have been grappling with how to reconcile the Senate-passed Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (S-754) and two House-passed bills -- the Protecting Cyber Networks Act (HR-1560) and the National Cybersecurity Protection Advancement Act (HR-1731). House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said in a statement Tuesday that he and the leaders of Congress’ Intelligence committees have been making progress in their negotiations. McCaul had apparently raised concerns about the degree to which the Intelligence committees’ earlier text had shifted the center of gravity in an extended information sharing apparatus too far away from the Department of Homeland Security in favor of intelligence and law enforcement agencies, a lobbyist said. It was unclear at our deadline whether the White House was likely to agree to the current conference text since some issues remained under negotiation, but that the text was at a point where it could receive White House review is “definitely encouraging,” a lobbyist said. The White House didn’t comment. Meanwhile, Fight for the Future and 18 other digital rights and privacy groups jointly sent a letter Wednesday encouraging House and Senate leaders to oppose the current conference bill. The current language “is the result of secret negotiations between the House and Senate intelligence committees at the expense of critical expert input from the House Committee on Homeland Security, and it loses any advantages and improvements” that resulted from the DHS-centric HR-1731, the groups said in their letter. The House inserted HR-1731’s language into HR-1560 before sending the bill to the Senate.

Tech Freedom will appeal to the Supreme Court if it loses its challenges to the FCC net neutrality and broadband reclassification order at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, said Berin Szoka, president of the group, which intervened in the litigation. “I am chomping at the bit to get this case before the Supreme Court,” he said on a panel organized by Tech Freedom that had both critics and supporters of the order. Other critics, citing comments by three D.C. Circuit judges at Friday’s oral argument (see 1512040058), voiced hope the court would rule against the FCC on at least parts of its order.