On July 20, 2007, the House Agriculture Committee ordered to be reported H.R. 2419, the new Farm Bill. According to a committee press release, the committee's version of the Farm Bill includes language that will allow for full implementation of mandatory country of origin labeling (COOL) for meat. The press release also states that the House is expected to vote on the Farm Bill before the end of July 2007. (House Agriculture Committee press release, dated 07/20/07, available at http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/agriculture_dem/pr_072007_FarmBill_Passage.html.)
The House Telecommunications Subcommittee is expected to zero in on the 700 MHz auction in a Tuesday FCC oversight hearing. Meanwhile, debate continues on whether the FCC should impose open access requirements on successful bidders. The latest wrinkle was Google’s Friday declaration that it will bid in the auction if the FCC applies the stiff open access requirements the company favors.
The House Telecommunications Subcommittee is expected to zero in on the 700 MHz auction in a Tuesday FCC oversight hearing as debate continues on whether the FCC should impose open access requirements on successful bidders. The latest wrinkle was Google’s Friday declaration that it will bid in the auction if the FCC applies the stiff open access requirements the company favors.
The FCC should hold a series of E-911 hearings before deciding whether to impose tougher location accuracy standards, FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein said at an E-911 Institute roundtable Thursday. “Our ultimate goal of advancing 911 may not be well served if the proceeding, regardless of how well intentioned, rushes to judgment by issuing a series of tentative conclusions without even beginning to conduct necessary due diligence,” he said. “The FCC needs to make a more collaborative approach… We need to listen to what those who are closer to the issue say.”
GENEVA -- A European Commission decision to back DVB-H as the standard for mobile TV (CD July 19 p10) has not ended debate. Public broadcasters and companies opposing a European Commission mandate for DVB-H say that would hobble investment and delay mobile TV adoption. The European Broadcasting Union urged the EC to follow its recommended principle of technological neutrality rather than require a solution, the EBU said in response to the EC decision to recommend DVB-H en route to a possible mandate.
SkyPort Global Communications recently participated in emergency drills demonstrating use of satellite communications in disasters, it said. During a June exercise, which mimicked an earthquake, the Missouri School Boards’ Association used Missouri National Guard SkyPort equipment to transmit live directly from the incident site to command locations.
As agencies rush to write breach notification policies under a 120-day Office of Management and Budget (OMB) deadline, they should factor in those policies’ cultural and technological feasibility, officials told a Wednesday Homeland Defense Journal forum. Not all strategies to prevent data leakage work in all situations, and if implemented poorly such policies can harm government systems, they said.
First responders have 30 days to complete applications for $968 million in nationwide interoperability grants, under government guidelines announced Wednesday. But the deadline should be manageable since public safety groups have been in talks with the government for several months about the program, said officials from the Departments of Homeland Security and Commerce, which are jointly managing the program. California got the highest grant allocation, $94 million. Texas was second at $65 million.
State regulators at their summer meeting advanced four more telecom policy resolutions, on numbering, broadband data collection, IP relay fraud and broadband over power line cost accounting. The Telecom Committee of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) decided against resurrecting a fifth policy matter, a controversial resolution narrowly defeated by its staff subcommittee that would have urged that federal Universal Service Fund reforms be neutral regarding providers and technologies.
The FCC hopes broadcasters and minority groups soon agree on how to alert non-English speakers to disasters, storms and the like using stations’ emergency alert systems (EASs). In six months, the FCC will issue a rulemaking on the matter, it said Thursday in an order voted on at its May meeting (CD June 1 p6). At the gathering, commissioners held off voting on a Minority Media & Telecom Council petition on Spanish-language EAS alerts to give the group and broadcasters time to compromise. The Council and other advocates wanted stations to translate warnings into Spanish and other tongues when a foreign-language station in a market is knocked off the air. Broadcasters want to get translations from authorities.