Senators Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Mazie K. Hirono (D-Hawai‘i) and Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) called on Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai to end his efforts that would threaten funding for programs that help millions of Americans in rural communities access telephone and internet services. Chairman Pai released a proposal to arbitrarily cap funding for Universal Service Fund (USF) programs. These programs provide schools and health care centers with access to broadband internet services, help struggling families connect with employers and loved ones, and encourage broadband providers to improve coverage in areas that need it most. “Especially in rural areas, USF programs have been key to redefining access to services and ensuring that the most vulnerable Americans have the tools and bandwidth necessary to communicate with one another, receive telehealth services, and engage in teaching and learning online,” the senators wrote. “We urge the Commission not to proceed down this path, and instead to consider other ways to support these critical programs that fulfill the mandate of Congress and that serve all Americans.”

“If the Commission goes forward with its plan to combine the budgetary caps of the E-Rate and RHC programs, increased demand in one program could lead to both programs becoming underfunded, which would pit the programs against one another in an unnecessary and unwise competition for funding.  Such a result would stand in stark contrast to the Commission’s duty under the law to provide ‘specific, predictable, and sufficient’ support for schools, libraries, and health care providers,” the senators wrote.

A bipartisan group of House lawmakers dropped a bill directing the Federal Communications Commission to hold a public auction of coveted midband airwaves. The Clearing Broad Airwaves for New Deployment (C-BAND) Act is led by House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mike Doyle (D-PA), Rep. Doris Matsui (D-CA), Rep. Bill Johnson (R-OH), and Rep Greg Gianforte (R-MT). The bill would require the FCC to conduct a public auction and protect current users of the spectrum throughout the process, with auction proceeds going to the government. The auction would have to make available between 200 and 300 megahertz of spectrum by 2022. The Subcommittee will hold a hearing on the bill Tuesday, October 29.

Currently, the FCC is contemplating allowing a group of satellite companies to privately sell the airwaves to wireless companies for 5G service, amid opposition from cable companies and a now-bipartisan set of lawmakers.

After the Federal Communications Commission received nearly 24 million comments in the course of just one rulemaking proceeding in 2017 and its website crashed due to the volume of comments submitted simultaneously, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations initiated a review of federal commenting systems to understand their flaws and develop recommendations to improve them. The Subcommittee  found:

• Most federal agencies lack appropriate processes to address allegations that people have submitted comments under fraudulent identities.
• The FCC’s process for addressing comments submitted under false identities potentially causes additional harm to victims of identity theft and the comment process as a whole.
• None of the commenting federal systems examined use CAPTCHA or other technology to ensure that real people, instead of bots, are submitting comments to rulemaking dockets.
• Agencies do not have consistent policies regarding the screening and posting of comments.

The Subcommittee's staff made the following recommendations:

1. Congress should amend the E-Government Act of 2002 to clarify that agencies should not accept or post abusive, profane, or threatening comments; irrelevant comments; or comments submitted under a false identity. Comments containing threats or abusive language, irrelevant comments, or comments sent from a fake identity should not remain available for public viewing.
2. Congress should consider amending the APA to provide guidance to agencies on the degree to which they should consider the volume of comments they receive in favor of or against a proposed rule.
3. In coordination with the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (“OIRA”), executive branch and independent agencies should develop standard protocols for reviewing and posting submitted comments and provide agency personnel with appropriate training on those protocols. Those protocols should address threats, abusive language, personally identifiable information, duplicate comments, and comments submitted under false identities. Agencies should make those protocols public to ensure commenters understand their responsibilities.
4. The E-Rulemaking Program Executive Steering Committee, FCC, and SEC should develop uniform and appropriate limits on duplicative comments and technological means to reduce the number of duplicate comments in their dockets. They should require commenters to submit individual comments directly through their platforms and develop policies to encourage organizations to collect signatures on one comment, rather than submitting thousands of individual identical comments.
5. The E-Rulemaking Program Executive Steering Committee, FCC, and SEC should consider using technology like CAPTCHA to ensure that only real human beings are commenting on rules.
6. Federal comment platforms should allow commenters the option to submit anonymously or under their real names, but not under false identities. If commenters enter a name, the platforms should require commenters to confirm that the name is their own and that they understand that criminal penalties may attach if they falsify their identity.
7. Federal agencies should refer allegations of identity theft to the appropriate law enforcement agencies.

Current practices by content publishers and distributors in digital markets limit libraries’ ability to deliver core services, according to a new report from the American Library Association (ALA). Submitted in response to an inquiry from the House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law, ALA’s report underscores practices by companies like Amazon and Macmillan Publishers that threaten Americans’ right to read what and how they choose and imperil other fundamental First Amendment freedoms. The report urges lawmakers to curb anti-competitive practices of digital market actors. The report addresses publishers’ abusive pricing and restrictive licensing terms for libraries. Over the past 10 years, libraries have spent more than $40 billion acquiring e-books as well as streamed music and audiovisual content from publishers. For popular e-book titles libraries pay up to five times the price an individual consumer pays and, unlike the individual, libraries typically have access to an e-book title for only two years. Restrictive license terms for streamed music and audiovisual content present libraries with similar access challenges. Streaming licenses are typically constrained to personal use and do not permit library lending or preservation. The report also notes the market for libraries that purchase academic and research content is particularly dismal. Like many other publications, scholarly journals essential for research have largely transitioned to digital formats over the past 25 years. At the same time, the market for scholarly journals has seen tremendous consolidation. In the college textbook market, three companies—Pearson, Cengage and McGraw-Hill—account for 85 percent of the industry. Furthermore, despite the cost improvements digital technology affords, textbook prices have risen three times the rate of inflation over the past two decades. Plans to merge Cengage and McGraw-Hill Education will create even further industry concentration, says ALA.