Cristiano Lima

The Senate advanced a series of tech and telecom-related bills by unanimous consent on Dec 13, including:

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai didn’t quite rule out an eventual run for office and said he hopes to find common ground with lawmakers in the new Congress. He said his 2019 agenda will focus on on rural broadband, telemedicine, 5G, public safety communications and robocalls. Regarding the Mobility Fund, he wouldn’t say the consequences carriers could face as a result of the investigation into whether one or more carriers overstated their wireless coverage for maps that will determine eligibility for subsidies under the $4.5 billion program.

The Senate passed the compromise farm bill, HR 2, notching a win for Democrats who opposed the House’s plan to impose tighter work requirements on food stamp recipients. The bill would raise the annual budget for Department of Agriculture broadband loans, loan guarantees and grants to $350 million from 2019 to 2023 and allows funding to go toward grants as well as loans. Other compromise farm bill broadband provisions include raising the “minimum acceptable level of broadband service for a rural area” to 25 Mbps downstream and 3 Mbps upstream – up from a previous 4/1 Mbps.

A group of 10 senators is calling on Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai to stand down on his proposal to classify text messaging as an information service. “We urge you to right this wrong and classify text messaging as a telecommunications service, affording this vital means of communications protections that promote innovation and support freedom of speech,” the lawmakers write in a letter led by Sen. Ed Markey(D-MA) and co-signed by eight Senate Democrats as well as Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

Sen-elect Josh Hawley (R-MO), who launched investigations into top tech players like Google and Facebook during his tenure as Missouri attorney general, is already drawing backlash from the industry over his critical remarks. During an interview with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, Hawley took aim at tech companies over Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a liability protection for online platforms cherished by the industry. “My question is, should they really be getting this special immunity from the government if they’re also going to act like censors?

Lawmakers are broadly receptive to concerns Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) is raising about the accuracy of Federal Communications Commission broadband maps. But most are not ready to commit to supporting Wicker’s attempt to hitch language to the year-end government funding bill to force the FCC to revisit the mapping. Congress is looking to wrap up its final fiscal 2019 funding measure by Dec. 21. Although Senate appropriator Jon Tester (D-MT) quickly endorsed the idea, others say they are still assessing.

George H.W. Bush was president before the iPhone, before Netflix, before Facebook. But his imprint was felt on the telecom and nascent tech sectors. “I think the most consequential part of that period would be the leadership in transitioning from analog to digital technologies,” said Al Sikes, who served as Federal Communications Commission chairman under Bush from 1989 to 1993. “We were an all-analog world except for the computer sector.” Sikes counts carving out spectrum for emerging technologies, such as mobile digital devices, as one of the Bush administration’s key tech achievements.

Democrats on the House Commerce Committee are pushing back on a report by the Federal Communications Commission Inspector General finding no evidence of a "concealment or cover-up" by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai in communications with the White House regarding the failed Sinclair-Tribune merger.

Bipartisan interest is growing on Capitol Hill in using a year-end funding bill to force the Federal Communications Commission to take stock of the accuracy of its broadband data. Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) is leading the effort. “I’ll be very frank: I’m going to try to stick something on the spending bill to make the FCC take another look at this,” said Sen. Wicker, the likely incoming chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. He called the FCC’s mapping “fatally flawed.” And count Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) in, too. Sen.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has called an upcoming House Judiciary Committee hearing with Google CEO Sundar Pichai an important “step to restoring public trust in Google & all the companies that shape the Internet.” But the prospect of Republican lawmakers using the appearance to air allegations of bias against tech companies is giving Democratic leaders pause.