FirstNet should expand its proposed categorical exclusions (CEs) from National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) assessments, Nokia Solutions and Networks and PCIA said in comments released Monday. The Department of the Interior (DOI) urged FirstNet to revise the proposed CEs to reflect DOI policies on migratory birds. FirstNet had sought public comment on the proposed CEs, which it said in the Federal Register “do not individually or cumulatively have a significant effect on the human environment and, thus, should be categorically excluded from the requirement to prepare an environmental assessment or environmental impact statement.” Comments were due Wednesday (CD Jan 8 p10).

A sign of the uncertainty facing state regulators during the IP transition came Sunday when District of Columbia Public Service Commission Management Analyst Cary Hinton asked an FCC official who would handle consumer complaints during the upcoming trials. The FCC order made a lot of presumptions, Hinton said on a panel at NARUC’s winter meeting that dealt with the transition, from what happens with phone numbers to 911. The FCC Jan. 30 approved such IP transition test beds (CD Jan 31 p1).

It’s not for lack of trying that Congress hasn’t overhauled the Communications Act since 1996. In December, House Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., outlined plans to update the landmark telecom law -- initial stakeholder comments posted online Wednesday (CD Feb 6 p8) (http://1.usa.gov/1dsVahV), hearings and white papers in 2014, a bill in 2015. They are hardly the first lawmakers to say they want to transform the act, which marked its 18th anniversary Saturday. Former staffers and congressional leaders involved in past attempts told us why recent high-profile efforts, such as in 2006 led by Republicans and in 2010 by Democrats, failed to succeed and what those experiences might portend for House Republicans now.

The specter of changes to the FCC’s rules for joint sales agreements among TV station owners could complicate its response to public interest objections to Gannett’s $2.73 billion purchase of Belo, said broadcast attorneys in interviews Friday. Gannett and two companies with which it is involved in such arrangements responded Friday to an application for review filed last month by Free Press and Georgetown University’s Institute for Public Representation. The public interest application for review “invites the Commission to remove any certainty that the Commission’s ownership rules (and presumably other rules, as well) will be enforced in a fair and uniform way,” said Tucker Operating Co. It and Sander Media are the two companies involved in sharing agreements with Gannett under the Belo deal.

An aging Communications Act framework is forcing the FCC to get more “creative” to keep regulating new technologies, Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said on an episode of C-SPAN’s The Communicators, which was set for telecast Saturday. Clyburn also said she anticipates “some action” on media ownership rules “in the coming weeks,” but she declined to go into detail about what such an item might contain. The commission has recently discussed relaxing the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rule in the local market. “These are things that we have been talking about for a number of months,” Clyburn said. “I am looking forward to whatever the chairman … circulates.” The agency is “due to conduct the quadrennial review [on the topic] and when we are ready to move, we will let the public know,” an FCC spokesman said.

New questions are starting to percolate about the conventional wisdom that, given expanding demands for data bandwidth, the AWS 3 and TV incentive auctions will each be a huge success, raising billions of dollars for the U.S. Treasury. The two are the first major auctions since the 700 MHz auction, which was under way at this time six years ago.

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., is the leading Democratic contender to head the Senate Commerce Committee later this year, amid plenty of speculation and scrambling surrounding this question, industry lobbyists told us. Current Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. has said (CD Jan 14/13 p3) he won’t seek reelection when his term ends then. If the Senate stays Democratic following the 2014 midterm elections, the clear frontrunner is Nelson, the committee’s senior Democrat, lobbyists said. But others also say the more senior Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., are contenders not to be counted out, if not the popular guesses now. Lobbyists envision less scrambling if the chamber goes Republican.

Opposition is building among multichannel video programming distributors to high-technology companies’ renewed request for rules on video device interoperability. Verizon joined the American Cable Association and DirecTV in telling us it, like NCTA (CD Feb 7 p3), opposes recent moves by an alliance that has included heavyweight makers of consumer electronics and Internet companies for an FCC NPRM on the topic. Some told us they're skeptical FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler will want to engage in what’s sure to be a contentious proceeding, because of opposition from most MVPDs. They think the agency will continue holding off on moving beyond a previous notice of inquiry on requiring a universal way for CE devices purchased from companies other than MVPDs’ set-top boxes to connect to pay-TV content.

An upcoming FCC order on closed caption quality will broadly require TV stations and multichannel video programming distributors to have high-quality captions on all captioned programming, but will defer the question of quantitative standards for measuring compliance to a further rulemaking, said an agency official and a public interest official. The action on closed caption quality is tentatively set for the FCC’s Feb. 20 meeting (CD Feb 6 p5). Putting off the imposition of the numerical standards suggested by consumer groups is in line with broadcasters’ filing on the issue, but deferring quantitative standards wouldn’t keep new captioning rules from having “a substantial impact” on the industry, said Assistant Clinical Professor Blake Reid of the University of Colorado’s Samuelson-Glushko Technology Law & Policy Clinic, which is representing Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired (TDI). The increased attention to captioning due to such a rulemaking would be a huge improvement, he said.

Neustar and Telcordia want the FCC to step in to clarify the timeline for the local number portability administrator bidding process. In dueling ex parte filings, the companies traded accusations about the other’s commitment to a fair and impartial process. Neustar wants the FCC to ensure there will be multiple rounds of bidding; Telcordia wants the FCC to make the bidding schedule clear and grant it access to some of Neustar’s redacted filings.