"Daily Update on Capitol Hill Trade Actions" is a regular feature of International Trade Today. The following are brief summaries of recent Capitol Hill actions.
On June 10, 2009, the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Health Subcommittee held a mark up of H.R. 2749, the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009.
The European Commission's Taxation and Customs Union Webpage on Electronic Customs has been updated. The webpage gives an overview of the major projects making up the electronic customs initiative, including the Single Electronic Access Point and Single Window, the Automated Import System, the Automated Export System, etc. (Notice, available at http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/customs/policy_issues/electronic_customs_initiative/it_projects/index_en.htm)
USTelecom and the Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance cited remarks by acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps on the need for a broad overhaul of how regulatory fees are assessed to argue that the commission’s May proposal falls short. A commission rulemaking as it assessed fees for fiscal 2009 drew a handful of other comments, most focused on narrow points.
SAN ANTONIO -- Prime View International’s proposed $215 million purchase of E-Ink took advantage of an option to buy the company, analysts and other sources said at the Society for Information Display conference. The option, issued last year, would explain what some industry officials called a low price for a company whose technology is at the heart of electrophoretic displays in e-books from Amazon, Sony and others, they said. The deal is expected to close this year, the company said.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated antitrust claims against VeriSign over its 2006 no-bid contract with ICANN. Citing “the benefit of extensive briefing, collegial discussions and amicus participation” from other domain-name interests, the 9th Circuit reversed and remanded a lower court ruling dismissing the case. The Coalition for ICANN Transparency challenged the 2006 no-bid contract between VeriSign and ICANN for the operation of .com (WID Dec 15/06 p7). But the 9th Circuit rejected the group’s claims concerning VeriSign’s 2005 .net contract.
The FCC extended seven days, until Wednesday, the deadline for Sprint Nextel to complete the transition of the broadcast auxiliary service to frequencies above 2025 MHz. The commission said it was giving itself more time to complete an order on a February request by Sprint, the Association for Maximum Service TV, the NAB and the Society of Broadcast Engineers that the deadline be extended until Feb. 7, 2010. Commissioners are set to grant the extension, agency sources said Thursday. “I think they are working on a draft order and just need a little more time to get the edits done,” said an industry source.
ICANN won’t have an easy time pacifying lawmakers worried about the U.S. role in the nonprofit’s work if ICANN doesn’t renew its joint project agreement (JPA) with the Commerce Department in September. ICANN President Paul Twomey faced a barrage of hostile questions at a House Communications Subcommittee hearing Thursday, on the amount and nature of his salary, ICANN’s regular surpluses and the independence of a review panel that oversees board decisions. He replied tersely several times that other speakers’ claims were “wrong.” Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., a member of the House Intelligence Committee, upped the rhetoric by saying ICANN’s status was a matter of national security.
The FCC is unlikely to act soon on renewed requests by AT&T and Verizon this week and last (CD June 3 p11) to bar cable companies from withholding access to their sports channels, said commission and industry officials. Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Robert McDowell haven’t asked acting Chairman Michael Copps to approve drafting an order, they said. That work probably won’t start while Copps heads the FCC, since it isn’t a consensus issue and the commissioners don’t consider it urgent, they said. But telco executives said they're optimistic of eventual action.
The NTIA’s Online Safety and Technology Working Group got a taste of the different views even within a single administration about children’s safety online, during its inaugural meeting Thursday. Members of the group, mandated by the Broadband Data Improvement Act passed last fall, are no strangers to the sometimes clashing values of privacy, anonymity, safety, prosecution and data security. Many of the 30 members have participated in previous efforts to figure out the risk to children online and how to protect them, including the recent Berkman Center task force that issued a report in January derided by many state attorneys general, who said it downplayed the risk (WID Jan 14 p4).