The NARUC Telecom Committee cleared three resolutions highlighting states' role in telecom issues, at a business meeting Tuesday at the association’s winter meeting. The resolutions, passed on unanimous vote, stressed the importance of cooperative federalism in various telecom matters. One resolution on wireless siting got revisions from its original draft after industry raised concerns, but the others tracked closely with drafts released last month (see 1701310048). On an earlier small-cells panel, industry disagreed with state and local officials about the need for federal action.
House Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., asked the White House to renominate FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and to nominate commissioners for the two open spots, one expected to go to a Democrat and one to a Republican, Walden said Tuesday during a speech before the Media Institute. He detailed Commerce's telecom goals as Pai sat at one of the first tables before him. Walden often joked and broke from prepared remarks.
States and the federal government are partners in a “common cause” promoting good communications policy, House Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., said Monday at a NARUC meeting. Walden urged states and local governments to look at cutting red tape holding back broadband deployment as Congress considers President Donald Trump’s proposed $1 trillion infrastructure package. Congressional aides from both parties said they hoped for bipartisan consensus on the infrastructure package but said a Telecom Act rewrite may still be a long way off.
Former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler urged flexible, agile broadband regulation to usher in "Web 3.0" that "orchestrates intelligence" and boosts productivity and economic growth. "We need to make sure that we have open networks that facilitate the kind of productivity revolution that’s necessary, and are not strangled by fewer than half a dozen companies,” he said in a keynote Monday, the final day of the Silicon Flatirons digital broadband conference at the University of Colorado-Boulder (see 1702120001 for Day One). He took some shots at the new Republican-run FCC, as he has on Twitter (see 1702130037). He said allowing the large broadband providers to consolidate further would make matters worse.
Virginia moved closer to enacting small-cells wireless siting legislation last week as several other states consider a flurry of legislation backed by industry to rein in local charges and application processing times. Thursday, the Virginia House Commerce and Labor Committee cleared a Senate bill (SB-1282) with a substitute amendment, and the full House probably will vote on it Tuesday, a committee spokesman told us. Local governments are watching about 10 states for bills pushed by the wireless industry, all while the FCC mulls federal action, NATOA Executive Director Steve Traylor said in an interview. Localities want to build out 5G services but would rather negotiate directly with industry without the specter of pending regulation or legislation, said Best Best law firm's Gerry Lederer.
The Trump administration hasn't contacted FCC Inspector General David Hunt and Commerce Department IG Peggy Gustafson about the possibility of removing them from their positions, they told Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Bill Nelson, D-Fla., in letters dated from this week and provided to us Wednesday by a Nelson spokesman. But the administration told some IGs they would be held over only temporarily, some IGs told Nelson. Senate Commerce held a hearing focused on IGs Wednesday, with testimony from Gustafson, confirmed to the position in December, as well as Homeland Security Department IG John Roth, Transportation Department IG Calvin Scovel and National Science Foundation IG Allison Lerner.
Two federal judges focused on whether a state regulatory group had legal standing to challenge an FCC order that allowed interconnected VoIP providers to acquire phone numbers directly from numbering authorities, rather than through telecom carriers. In oral argument at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Wednesday, Chief Judge Merrick Garland and Judge Judith Rogers asked what harms NARUC's members suffered under the order, which didn't classify VoIP as a Title II telecom service under the Communications Act. NARUC General Counsel Brad Ramsay said state commissions lost VoIP certification authority and oversight over numbering issues, but FCC counsel Matthew Dunne said the order preserved most state numbering rights.
Don't expect NTIA reauthorization to be a vehicle for other policy proposals such as spectrum allocation legislation and vehicle-to-infrastructure grants, House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., told reporters Wednesday, rejecting inclusion of measures that subcommittee Democrats raised last week (see 1702020065). House Commerce Republicans continued to lay out an agenda for 2017 during a meeting with reporters Wednesday, focused heavily on NTIA and FCC reauthorizations, starting with NTIA and then moving to FCC action.
The FCC Enforcement Bureau is no longer allowed to settle enforcement actions begun by the full commission without a vote of all members, Chairman Ajit Pai said in a statement Wednesday on his latest change to processes. Pai has announced a process modification each day this week (see 1702070072 and 1702060062). Meanwhile, the other Republican commissioner asked the agency to be more consistent with deadlines, holding all to them after a general amnesty period except for when waivers are granted. And AT&T slammed past FCC enforcement measures.
FCC reversal of several cybersecurity-related proceedings and proposals further feeds expectations of an agencywide shift on cybersecurity policy under new Chairman Ajit Pai, industry executives and lawyers said in interviews. The Public Safety Bureau rescinded two cybersecurity items Friday amid a spate of Pai-directed actions (see 1702060062) -- a white paper on communications sector cybersecurity regulation issued two days before now-former Chairman Tom Wheeler's resignation and a notice of inquiry on cybersecurity for 5G devices. The FCC also removed from circulation a controversial cybersecurity policy statement adopting the Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council’s (CSRIC) 2015 report on recommendations for communications sector cybersecurity risk management (see 1702030070).