A handful of the Senate’s top cybersecurity hawks commended President Barack Obama for issuing a cybersecurity executive order to improve the security of the nation’s most critical infrastructure, at a joint hearing Thursday by the Senate Commerce and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committees. Despite previous warnings that an order would actually hurt U.S. companies’ ability to protect themselves from cyberattacks, even some Senate Republicans offered veiled praise for the order. Agency leaders at the Department of Homeland Security and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which are tasked by the executive order to help U.S. owners of critical infrastructure, told lawmakers that they're working hard to comply with the order but said they are concerned the sequester may negatively affect their agencies’ ability to protect the nation from attacks.

Tennessee lawmakers, telcos and utilities are stirred up over possibility of a new law changing how pole attachment pricing will work. There are two broad models for governing negotiated pole pricing rates under consideration -- the Watson/Matlock bill (HB 1111/SB 1222) and the telco-backed Freedom to Connect Act (HB 567/SB 1049), both of which have strong supporters and detractors. The Tennessee Senate Commerce and Labor Committee passed the Senate version of the Watson/Matlock bill Tuesday, advancing it to the Senate Finance, Ways and Means Committee, with eight votes in favor with one pass. The Tennessee Cable Telecommunications Association (TCTA) issued a press release last week (http://bit.ly/XdiIEb) warning of what it sees as an “unprecedented fee increase” of this Watson/Matlock bill. It would add $21 million in costs for private broadband Internet providers, TCTA argued. “This is big-government, anti-business, anti-consumer legislation that has severe consequences for Tennessee,” said TCTA Executive Director Corum Webb in a statement. But the Tennessee Electric Cooperative Association (TECA) said Feb. 26 on its website “the Watson/Matlock bill is based on good-faith efforts to compromise with cable in the past.” (http://bit.ly/WKsKsH). “The bill preserves a cooperative’s authority over its own property while giving attachers a clearly defined dispute resolution process and protection against legitimate abuse.” TCTA praised the alternative Freedom to Connect Act and said it will “establish guiding policy for rates, based on actual costs, and set up independent, third-party review for situations when utilities and private companies disagree.” TECA, however, said the act would hurt rural Tennesseans and “result in increased electric bills across Tennessee.” On Tuesday, the Knoxville News Sentinel said the Freedom to Connect Act would be the better deal. The Watson/Matlock bill “supported by utilities would require the [administrative law] judge to split the roughly $100 per year annual cost of maintaining a pole equally among the users,” the editorial said. “That would mean that cable and telephone companies would pay $33.33 per pole per year, with the utility responsible for the remaining $33.33. Companies such as AT&T that own at least 300,000 of their own poles in Tennessee or another state are exempt.” The Taxpayers Protection Alliance also attacked the Watson/Matlock bill in a March 1 letter to legislators, alleging it would “would force providers to pay millions in additional pole fees, which in turn would mean phone and Internet providers would have to raise rates” (http://bit.ly/169jxAZ). Grover Norquist, president of the national group Americans for Tax Reform, bashed the Watson/Matlock bill in a similar March 1 letter to Tennessee legislators (http://bit.ly/W68Efa).

Progeny LMS CEO Gary Parsons said this week he is confident the FCC will be able to wade through objections to rolling out the company’s proposed 911 location service in the 900 MHz Multilateration Location and Monitoring Service band, but he is not certain when a decision might come from the agency. The proposal continues to be a lightning rod for criticism.

Several House and Senate lawmakers are introducing legislation aimed at permitting cellphone users to unlock their phones so they can be used on different networks, they said this week. Momentum to amend U.S. copyright law on cellphone unlocking surged after top telecom officials in the administration advocated this week for legislative fixes to give consumers greater control over their devices (WID March 5 p2).

In the Feb. 27 issue of the CBP Bulletin (Vol. 47, No. 10), CBP published a notice on its revocation of a ruling on the country of origin marking of toy blocks.

Several House and Senate lawmakers are introducing legislation aimed at permitting cellphone users to unlock their phones so they can be used on different networks, they said this week. Momentum to amend U.S. copyright law on cellphone unlocking surged after top telecom officials in the administration advocated this week for legislative fixes to give consumers greater control over their devices (CD March 5 p1).

The 11th Circuit Appeals Court’s Decision in U.S. v. Izurieta is representative of the trend toward criminalization of customs violations, and federal criminal prosecutions in general, said several lawyers. The decision won’t have much effect on the ability of the government to prosecute criminal cases for customs violations, they said. But the government’s case suffered from a flawed indictment, and the Justice Department may be more careful in the future when drafting indictments for customs violations, the lawyers said.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is seeking comments on a proposal to amend the licensing, inspection and annual fees -- including an hourly rate increase in import and export license fees -- according to a Federal Register notice to be published March 7. The NRC is proposing to change the current hourly rate of $274 to $277 for all fees assessed under Federal Regulations Codes 170.21 and 170.31, which cover import and export licenses (here). The proposed rule would raise various application fees covered under those codes. The application fee for import or export of production or utilization facilities under 10 CFR 110, for example, would be raised to $18,000 from $17,800. The NRC is proposing total fees of about $1,053.2 million, the notice said. The fee changes are necessary to implement the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990, the notice said, which requires the NRC to recover about 90 percent of its 2013 fiscal year budget through fees. Comments on this proposal are due April 8. They can be submitted by searching for Docket ID NRC-2012-0211 on www.regulations.gov, or through email to Rulemaking.Comments@nrc.gov.

Owners of small online businesses are scheduled to arrive on Capitol Hill Wednesday to voice their concerns over the Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013 (HR-684, S-336), which would allow states to collect sales tax on online purchases made by in-state residents from out-of-state retailers. The bills will harm small businesses by having a too-low small-seller exception of $1 million, eBay Senior Director of Global Public Policy Brian Bieron told us. EBay organized the small-business trips to the Hill. The Streamlined Sales Tax Governing Board (SSTGB) -- which has been a major proponent of e-commerce sales tax bills -- raised concerns over the bill’s language during its federal implementation working group’s public conference call Monday.

The Internal Revenue Service should change the outdated way it considers whether media get tax-exempt status, a group of journalists, foundations and news websites said in a report that was partly backed by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. Rules dating from the 1970s that require organizations seeking 501(c)(3) status to primarily engage in education have led to months- and sometimes years-long delays in websites obtaining such status, said the study. Written under the auspices of the Council on Foundations and led by Steve Waldman, who wrote the commission’s study on the future of media when he was an aide to Genachowski, Monday’s report said some news websites have folded while their applications were pending. “Unnecessary obstacles seem to be getting placed in the way of nonprofit news outlets attempting to educate their communities,” Genachowski said.