Megan Wilson

A large coalition of industry groups and public interest lobbyists are pushing Congress to invest in “future-proof” high-speed fiber networks in a battle over how to divvy up the $65 billion proposed to expand broadband internet service. The spending is included in an infrastructure package tentatively agreed to by a bipartisan group of senators and President Joe Biden.

Ligado Networks LLC overcame powerful opposition to its proposed broadband network with some help from inside-the-Beltway figures close to President Donald Trump’s White House. The Reston (VA)-based company prevailed with a costly persuasion campaign overseen by a blue-chip roster of lobbyists and board members.

Alliances between Silicon Valley powerhouses and their cousins in Seattle (WA) are constantly forming and breaking apart, with big names often coming down on the opposite side of policy and legislative debates. The result is that the “tech lobby” is far from monolithic, with big names in the industry often at odds with one another.

Federal officials may not use private e-mail accounts to get around public records laws, a federal judge ruled June 5. The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit overturned a lower court decision in which judges dismissed claims from the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a conservative think tank that attempted to obtain correspondence from a top White House official through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

The White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) said it did not need to search for or turn over records held by the head of the OSTP on a private e-mail account as part of the open records request. Throughout the case, the government argued that “[d]ocuments on a nongovernmental e-mail server are outside the possession or control of federal agencies, and thus beyond the scope of FOIA.” Judge David Sentelle, the chief judge of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, disagreed with that reasoning and ordered the lower court to reconsider the case. “If a department head can deprive the citizens of their right to know what his department is up to by the simple expedient of maintaining his departmental e-mails on an account in another domain, that purpose is hardly served,” Judge Sentelle wrote. “It would make as much sense to say that the department head could deprive requestors of hard-copy documents by leaving them in a file at his daughter’s house and then claiming that they are under her control,” he said.

Comcast has hired a new team of high-powered lobbyists as it fights for approval of its proposed merger with Time Warner Cable.

The company added The Normandy Group to its advocacy roster, according to recently filed lobbying disclosure forms, and will have former Rep Henry Bonilla (R-TX) working on its behalf. It’s the second lobby shop Comcast has hired since announcing its intention to merge with Time Warner in February, and it brings the company’s total tally of lobby firms to 35, forms filed with the Senate indicate.

The Normandy Group will “work on Comcast's pending acquisition of Time Warner Cable and related Congressional hearing on the transaction,” according to the paperwork. Also on the account are Krista Stark, who served as legislative director to Rep James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-WI), when he was chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and Louis Dupart, a veteran of Capitol Hill, the Defense Department and the CIA.