Three Commerce Committee members will be on Congress’s joint select committee on deficit reduction. Late Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he appointed Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass. On Wednesday, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, selected House Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich. And Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., chose Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa. The lawmakers’ presence on the committee may increase the chances that spectrum is part of final legislation, lobbyists and industry analysts said.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Revamping the health-insurance system adds to huge data security and privacy problems with making medical information electronic, an Obama administration official said Tuesday. The creation of health insurance exchanges under the federal Affordable Healthcare Act raises the stakes in government efforts “to move the health industry into the 20th century,” said Joy Pritts. She’s the chief privacy officer in the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, which promotes the use of electronic health records and information exchange. She said advancing into the 21st century remains an aim down the road.

Ashkan Soltani, a University of California-Berkeley researcher, fired back at the CEO of KISSmetrics for spinning the truth about the besieged company’s “rogue” tracking practices. In July Soltani and four other researchers documented the behavior of several online companies alleged to use non-transparent methods to track users online (WID Aug 8 p1). “I don’t think he ever read our paper,” Soltani said in an interview Monday. The other authors of the paper are researchers Mika Ayenson, from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Dietrich Wambach from the University of Wyoming, Nathan Good, principal of Good Research, and Chris Hoofnagle, with UC-Berkeley.

FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell, a vigorous opponent of the FCC’s net neutrality order -- approved over his dissent Dec. 21 -- said last week he hopes the Office of Management and Budget will examine the costs of the order for businesses large and small. McDowell noted questions raised by some Congressional Republicans, including Rep. Cliff Stearns of Florida about the cost of the rules.

FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell, a vigorous opponent of the FCC’s net neutrality order -- approved over his dissent Dec. 21 -- said last week he hopes the Office of Management and Budget will examine the costs of the order for businesses large and small. McDowell noted questions raised by some Congressional Republicans, including Rep. Cliff Stearns of Florida (CD July 8 p5), about the cost of the rules.

In comments to NTIA, some trademark and intellectual property advocates expressed concerns about ICANN’s conduct in operating the functions of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority. Some groups, like the Association of National Advertisers and RIAA, criticized ICANN’s decision to move forward with distributing new generic top-level domains (gTLDs). So far, NTIA is reviewing comments from more than 40 organizations and companies in a further notice of inquiry on a draft statement of work (SOW), “a key element of the procurement process for the new IANA functions contract,” the agency said on its website. After NTIA granted ICANN a six-month extension on the contract, the contract will expire March 31.

Pay-TV companies found their next exhibit in the quest to convince the FCC to change good-faith bargaining rules on retransmission consent deals with broadcasters. Four days after the FCC approved the contested sale of a TV station (CD July 22 p16) despite the concerns of an alliance of all major multichannel video programming distributors other than Comcast and opposition from the association for small cable operators, a broadcaster filed an antitrust lawsuit against a rival. Nexstar’s suit against Granite Broadcasting was ill-timed, agreed broadcast and cable lawyers who reviewed it and related FCC filings, because it gave ammunition to MVPDs to press the FCC to act on retrans. They also said the case won’t likely spur the agency to act more quickly.

The House sponsors of last year’s Universal Service Fund overhaul bill support the FCC acting on the industry USF agreement brokered by USTelecom. Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., no longer plans to move USF legislation, aide Brad Schweer told us Wednesday. He said that Terry “will now be encouraging the FCC to produce details that reflect suggestions” proposed by the industry group. Terry’s former co-sponsor Rick Boucher agreed that the commission should move forward on its own.

In the August 3, 2011 issue of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Bulletin (Vol. 45, No. 32), CBP published one notice that proposes to revoke a “treatment” that involves the use of “average price” to value cut flowers imported under consignment that were eligible for duty-free treatment under the ATPA.

The International Trade Commission announces that a Section 337 patent-based complaint has been filed regarding certain light-emitting diodes and products containing same.